NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-21-2025 7PM EDT

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janene Herbst. The Department of Homeland Security is shutting down internal watchdog agencies that advocated for immigrants, calling them roadblocks to immigration enforcement. And that includes the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, and the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman. Those agencies investigated complaints, including those about detention center conditions and green card processing delays. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin says the offices obstructed immigration enforcement

by adding bureaucratic hurdles and undermining the agency's mission. White House adviser and tech billionaire Elon Musk met with Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon today, but the White House is denying a report from the New York Times and confirmed by NPR that the original plan was for Musk to be briefed in the secure facility known as the tank on sensitive Pentagon plans on China. As NPR's Tom Bowman reports, that didn't happen. Musk instead went up to Hegseth's office and spent about an hour and a half there and Hegseth declined to say what they talked about. Now some Pentagon officials

I spoke with were told the scheduled tank meeting was for an unclassified briefing on China. The Times of course reported that this discussion was set up to talk about war plans for China, obviously very, very sensitive. And here's Tom Bowman. President Trump says he would never show U.S. war planning to anyone, especially a businessman like Musk with interest in China. Trump called reports to the contrary false saying they're meant to undermine the relationship between the Pentagon and Musk. And President Trump picked Boeing over Lockheed Martin to build the Air Force's sixth-generation fighter jets called the F-47. It's the Pentagon's most sophisticated fighter jet so far. He

says an experimental version of the plane has been secretly flying for about five years. The Pentagon says it will have stealth and penetration capabilities that far exceed the current fleet. For Boeing, this win marks a reversal of fortune for a company that struggled in both the commercial and defense sides of its business. A freeze on government-issued payment cards is threatening water safety testing and other projects at the Interior Department. Empire's Shannon Bond has more. government pay card spending has been capped at a dollar to comply with an executive order signed by President Trump last month. That affects millions of cards federal employees

use in their work every day. A federal maintenance worker in the southern U.S. can't make payments for water safety testing. Employees at the U.S. Geological Survey can't buy equipment to repair stream gauges that monitor water flow. They have to rely on the single person in each region authorized to make payments. The spending freeze comes as interior employees are bracing for job cuts of up to 40%. Shannon Bond, NPR News. This is NPR News. The Israeli military is ordering the demolition of dozens of Palestinian homes in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. That camp has been a focal point of Israel's extended

military operation in the territory, the longest in more than two decades. In an order obtained by NPR, an Israeli commander instructed troops to demolish 95 residential buildings in the neighborhood starting this week. It's part of a two-month-long operation that Israel Israeli commander instructed troops to demolish 95 residential buildings in the neighborhood starting this week. It's part of a two-month-long operation that Israel says is for counterterrorism. The military has already emptied the camp of residents, but Palestinians say they haven't been allowed to collect personal items. The National Weather Service has reduced weather balloon flights by half in some parts of the country.

The Mountain West News Bureau's Hannah Merzbach reports that change could endanger people in the Rockies, Great Plains, and elsewhere. The National Weather Service cut Colorado and Wyoming's only balloon flights from twice a day to once, according to federal documents. And some flights were canceled altogether in South Dakota and Nebraska. Retired Denver TV meteorologist Mike Nelson says the changes are unprecedented in his five decades of experience. This is critical, very potentially life-saving information. We won't have the data to predict when we're going to have an outbreak of large hail and tornadoes.

Flights in Wisconsin and Michigan were also reduced. A National Weather Service representative did not say why the reductions were made. For NPR News, I'm Hannah Merzbach in Jackson, Wyoming. And I'm Janine Herbst, NPR News in Washington.