NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-16-2025 9AM EDT

Episode Date: March 16, 2025

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This message comes from Wondery. Kiki Palmer is that girl, and she's diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest to have real conversations on her podcast, Baby This Is Kiki Palmer. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Giles Snyder. That severe storm system that's been pounding parts of the country this weekend is being blamed for killing more than 30 people, including 12 in tornado-hit Missouri. Tens of thousands are without power from Missouri to Michigan and Georgia. That storm system fanned the flames of more than 100 wildfires in Oklahoma. They've scorched at least 170,000 acres. Hundreds of homes are destroyed. And Anna Pope of Member Station KOSU reports one of them belonged to Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt. Many Oklahomans are returning to pick up the pieces of their homes after a fire

storm swept the state. Among them was Governor Kevin Stitt at his ranch house in central Oklahoma. In a social media video, he walked where his house once stood. Stitt says he will be rebuilding with the rest of the state. You never think it's going to happen to your place and these wildfires just come out of nowhere and can really take over. More than a dozen fires continue to burn into the weekend. For NPR News, I'm Anna Pope in Oklahoma City. President Trump filed a presidential action this weekend that invokes a law passed in 1798

to target members of a Venezuelan prison gang. The order was quickly put on hold by a federal judge as NPR's Humanitosteo reports. A federal judge blocked the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport anyone. The order came down just hours after Trump issued an action that would expedite removal of all Venezuelan citizens 14 and older found to be members of the gang. The block came from a preemptive lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union asking for the court to first stop the government from deporting five men for two weeks. They later asked the judge to issue a broader block. The wartime authority

allows for people to be deported without going through immigration courts. Immigration advocates fear that invoking this also opens the door for targeting and deportations of other individuals, regardless of their status or criminal records. Jimena Bustillo, NPR News. A London-based charity has confirmed that eight of its staff members were killed by back-to-back Israeli airstrikes in Gaza this weekend. The organization says they were carrying out humanitarian work for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Here's NPR's Kat Lonsdorf. In a video statement on the Al Kheir Foundation's Facebook page, founder Qasim Rashid Ahmed said the group had been using a drone to film and document how to add a thousand more tents for displaced Palestinians to the northern area of Beit Lehiya.

They were filming for humanitarian purpose. They were not filming on military zone. They were purely on humanitarian area. The area where the strikes happened is designated as a free movement area by the Israeli military. Israel says the strikes killed members from a, quote, terrorist cell, including individuals undercover as journalists.

And the drone was being used to carry out attacks against Israeli forces in Gaza. The Al-Khair Foundation denies that. Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Tel Aviv. And this is NPR News. Death toll is rising from a fire at a nightclub in North Macedonia. The authorities now say 59 people were killed and more than 100 others were injured. The blaze began in the early morning

hours during a concert. North Macedonia's interior minister says sparks from flares apparently ignited the roof of the club, although a prosecutor says the cause is still being investigated. At the International Space Station last night... Dragon SpaceX on the big loop. Docking sequence complete. Ground will be enabling hardline power and comm connections shortly." A SpaceX capsule carrying a new crew docked at the orbiting outpost as part of a mission to return to Earth to astronauts who've been stranded there for nine months, BBC's Rebecca

Morell reports. Crew 10, welcome aboard the International Space Station. The arrival of this replacement crew marks the beginning of the end for Butch, Wilmore and Sunny Williams' extended mission. The NASA astronauts have been on the space station since June and were only supposed to stay for just over a week, but the spacecraft they arrived on, made by aerospace company Boeing, suffered technical problems, so NASA had to find another way to get the astronauts home. They opted for the next scheduled SpaceX flight, extending Butch and Sonny's mission until now. The pair will now spend the next few days handing over to the new crew before they can finally begin their journey back. Whether permitting the capsules slated to carry Wilmore and Williams back to Earth

will leave the space station no earlier than Wednesday and splash down off Florida's coast. I'm Giles Snyder. This is NPR News from Washington. Anas Baba is NPR's eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza. Wherever you put your eye to the horizon, it's the same destruction everywhere. On the Sunday story, what it's like to be a reporter covering the war in Gaza while also living through it. Listen now to the Sunday story on the Up First podcast from NPR.