NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-19-2025 9AM EDT

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

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On the Embedded Podcast. No, no. It's called denying a speech and mis-speech. It's misinformation. Like so many Americans, my dad has gotten swept up in conspiracy theories. These are not conspiracy theories. These are reality. I spent the year following him down the rabbit hole, trying to get him back. Listen to Alternate Realities on the Embedded Podcast from NPR, all episodes available now.

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korva Coleman. Israeli airstrikes continue today in Gaza. The Israeli military launched the surprise strikes yesterday at night. More than 400 Palestinians have been killed, more than 500 wounded. NPR's Daniel Estrin says the Israeli government is returning to war because it is trying to pressure Hamas to accept the terms of a new ceasefire deal. The old ceasefire deal was struck under the Biden administration and Israel sees itself as having leeway to try to extract new ceasefire terms under President Trump. That's exactly what Trump's Mideast envoy Steve Wittkopf tried to do. He presented a proposal last

week for new ceasefire terms for Hamas to release more hostages before the talks to end the war began. And Piers Janul Estrin reporting. A federal judge has told the Justice Department to provide details about some deportation flights that happened last weekend. The judge had ordered the Trump administration not to use a rarely used wartime power to carry out the flights, but they happened anyway. Now the judge wants a timeline of when the flights occurred. Another federal judge says that billionaire Elon Musk and his government cost-cutting

entity Doge likely violated the U.S. Constitution by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development. And Piers Fatmatanis has more. More than two dozen current or recently fired employees of USAID sued Elon Musk and Doge, challenging the accelerated shutdown of the agency. In a 68-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered Doge to reinstate email access to current agency employees and block them from taking any actions relating to the agency without the approval

of a duly appointed USAID officer. The judge said the actions to shut down USAID and permanently close its headquarters and that it, quote, deprived Congress of their constitutional authority over an agency created by Congress. Fatma Tanis, NPR News. Historians are scouring thousands of unredacted records related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The records were released yesterday. NPR's Scott Newman reports they have yet to yield anything that would dramatically alter

the official narrative. President Trump ordered the documents released, but conspiracy theorists are likely to be disappointed with what they reveal so far. One from 1991 details a conversation between an American professor and a KGB operative. The Soviet agent concludes JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was not working for the KGB. The same Soviet operative said Oswald, while living in the USSR, had a stormy relationship with his Russian wife. He also said Oswald, who had served in the U.S. Marine Corps, had shown himself to be a poor marksman.

Scott Newman, NPR News, Washington. You're listening to NPR. The National Weather Service is warning that gusty winds and dry conditions could spark wildfires today across several states, from Texas to West Virginia. Wind gusts could hit 50 miles per hour in parts of west central Texas. Living in extreme heat can age your DNA as fast as smoking does. NPR's Alejandra Barunda reports on the finding from a new study published in the journal Science Advances. Scientists and doctors have known for years that going through a heat wave can hurt and

even kill people. But researchers at the University of Southern California have now identified how living through intense, long-lasting heat over the long term could actually be taking a silent toll at the cellular or the molecular level in our body. That's Nyeong Chae. She's a researcher at USC and led the new research. Heat exposure in older adults is linked to changes in their DNA. Those changes lead to premature biological aging. For people living in extremely hot places like Phoenix, the aging impacts are similar to smoking. Alejandra Burunda, NPR News. The Professional Tennis Players Association has filed an antitrust lawsuit in federal

court. The group was co-founded by pro tennis star Novak Djokovic. The association claims the men's and the women's professional tennis tours, the International Tennis Federation, and the Sports Integrity Agency are essentially a cartel. The players are seeking a greater cut of the revenues that pro tennis brings in. They want more of a say in how the tennis organizations run their sport. I'm Korva Coleman, NPR News.