NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-26-2025 2PM EDT

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

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Singapore is one of the busiest cities in the world, but biologist Philip Johns is fascinated by a different inhabitant on the island, otters. At rush hour downtown, the otters would swim toward each other and there are literally tens of thousands of people who are on their way to work. How ideas, emotions, and creatures coexist. That's next time on the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The Atlantic has published the full text of the high-level Signal group chat about U.S. military plans in Yemen earlier this month. Its editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, reported Monday that he was mistakenly included in the text

thread. On NPR's Here and Now Today, he pushed back against the Trump administration's claims that no classified information was shared in the chat involving Defense Secretary Pete Hegstaff, National Security Advisor Mike Walz, and others. Someone who's written about national security for a long time, you know, we have, we generally have few golden rules. And one of those rules You you don't do anything that could inadvertently endanger American lives American personnel Whether they're government personnel military personnel intelligence personnel So I couldn't quite believe that This information was out there in the wild Whitehouse continues to defend its response to the incident the critics are calling a serious security failure

His White House press, Caroline Levitt. The National Security Advisor has taken responsibility for this matter. And the National Security Council immediately said, alongside the White House Council's office, that they are looking into how a reporter's number was inadvertently added to this messaging thread. We have said all along that no classified material was sent on this messaging thread, there were no locations, no sources or methods revealed, and there were certainly no war plans discussed. Hello, Vieta. Today's White House briefing.

Note, NPR CEO Catherine Maher chairs the board of the Signal Foundation, which supports the message app. The U.S. is getting closer to exhausting its options for paying its bills if the debt limit remains unchanged. That's the warning today from the Congressional Budget Office. On its website, the CBO estimates that the government's ability to borrow using extraordinary measures will probably be exhausted by August or September of this year. The CBO says if the government's borrowing needs are much greater than it projects, the U.S. could run out of resources as early as late May if the debt limit is not raised or suspended.

President Trump will announce tariffs on the auto industry 4 p.m. Eastern in the Oval Office, that today from Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. Today, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is visiting the prison in El Salvador at the heart of a confrontation between the administration and federal courts. Here's NPR's Jiles Snyder. The prison that Secretary Nome is visiting is where more than 200 Venezuelans are jailed after they were deported from the U.S. President Trump used wartime powers under the Alien Enemies Act to fly them there, alleging

that many are violent members of a notorious Venezuelan gang. A federal judge has put Trump's use of the law on hold and is trying to determine if the government defied his order to turn the flights around. Noam's visit to the prison comes as the Trump administration is seeking to overturn the order. A three-judge panel in the nation's capital heard arguments in the case this week. That's Giles Snyder reporting. It's NPR News. A new report shows the planet is not yet on track to attain its goal of tripling renewable

energy by 2030. However, the International Renewable Energy Agency says, findings released today show last year renewable energy worldwide reached a record high. Nearly two-thirds of the new renewable electricity was in China. The report shows 92.5% of all new electricity brought online came from the sun, wind, or other clean resources. Cannabis has a distinct, skunky smell. But as the drug grows in popularity, new strains have cropped up with notes of lavender, cloves, and cognac. And P.R.'s Ping Wong visited a

grow farm in Maryland to check it out. Andras Kirchner is the founder and head grower of District Cannabis, which sells weed in Washington, D.C. and Maryland. He says weed strains these days have a wide variety of smells. From berry to citrus, lemon, lime, cherry, a lot of the popular strains are kind of a combination between the gas and another flavor. This trend is related to a better understanding of the science behind the gassy, skunky smell of weed, which has been traced to a sulfur compound,

and to consumer demand. As recreational use grows, cannabis brewers and growers are developing new strains that are more pleasant smelling to more people. Ping Huang, NPR News. At last check on Wall Street, the Nasdaq is now down nearly 400 points or more than 2 percent at 17,874. This is NPR News.