NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-18-2025 3PM EDT

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

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The scary new movie Sinners from the director of Black Panther finds Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers. It's got vampires, it's got great music, and it's a fun one to see with a big crowd. This is the most excited I've been about a movie in a very long time. We'll tell you why you should see Sinners on the biggest screen you can. Listen to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janene Hurst. Senator Chris Van Hollen held a face-to-face meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He's the man illegally deported to a mega prison in El Salvador by the Trump administration. MPR's Rylan Barton reports the Maryland Democratic

senator was initially turned away by Salvadorian officials. In an interview yesterday on All Things Considered, Van Hollen said soldiers had initially prevented him from reaching the prison. They simply said they had been given orders not to allow me to to visit him. Later in the day, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, posted on X that Van Hollen had met with Abrego Garcia and said that he, quote, gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody. The senator then posted a picture of himself and Abrego Garcia sitting at a table. Also yesterday, a federal appeals court

declined the Trump administration's request to lift a judge's order that they help bring Abrego Garcia back to the US. Rylan Barton, NPR News. The Trump administration has redirected government websites about COVID-19 to a White House page dedicated to a controversial theory that the pandemic was caused by the virus leaking from a Chinese government lab.

MPR's Rob Stein has more. The original federal websites had provided the public with basic information about COVID-19, such as vaccines, treatment and testing, but those sites are gone and now direct visitors to the White House website and a page titled Lab Leak, the true origins of COVID-19. That theory argues the virus escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan, China and then spread around the world.

Most scientists believe that the virus most likely originated naturally in a wild animal and then spread to people in a market located in Wuhan. Rob Stein, NPR News. Ukrainian President Zelensky says there's evidence that China is supplying Russia with artillery and gunpowder. And here's Joanna Kekis's reports, Zelensky didn't elaborate on this evidence while China says the charge is baseless. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Qian said Beijing has not sent weapons or ammunition to either Russia or Ukraine during the war that China calls a crisis.

Speaking to reporters in Kiev on Thursday, Zelensky said Ukraine's intelligence has documented such shipments from China to Russia and said he wasn't surprised. Zelensky said, Chinese leader Xi Jinping promised earlier in the war that he would not sell or send weapons to Russia. Unfortunately, now we see information to the contrary. Zelensky said he would provide more information about these shipments sometime next week. Ukraine has also captured two Chinese nationals fighting for Russia. Joanna Kekesis, NPR News, Kiev.

Wall Street is closed today in observance of Good Friday. You're listening to NPR News. Federal regulators approved a $35 billion merger of Capital One and Discover, creating the country's biggest credit card company. The deal is expected to close next month. As a condition of the merger, Capital One says it will comply with the Fed's action against Discover, which was fined $100 million for overcharging merchants certain interchange fees from 2007 through 2023. Revenue from those swipe fees, which merchants pay every time a customer buys something, has more than doubled over the past decade. The Department of Housing and Urban Development

has put its Washington, D.C., headquarters up for sale. And Pierce Jennifer Ludden reports it's part of a wider push to save money by downsizing federal real estate. The housing agency HUD says its 1968 building faces more than $500 million in deferred maintenance and that current staff only occupy half the space even as its workforce shrinks. HUD Secretary Scott Turner says right-sizing will be more efficient and less costly for taxpayers. He's also called the massive, brutalist-style building ugly.

It could be tricky to sell. It's on the National Register of Historic Places. HUD says staying in the D.C. area is a priority. But this week, President Trump made it easier for agencies to move outside large cities, saying they need to be where the people are. Jennifer Lutton and NPR News, Washington. GAS prices continue to fall heading into the Easter weekend. AAA says the average price of a gallon of regular gas is about $3.16.

That's about five cents less than a week ago. I'm Janene Herbst, NPR News. Aviv Regev is the co-founder of the Human Cell Atlas. It's a huge leap in understanding how human cells work. She says it's like upgrading from a 15th century map of the world to Google Maps. If I want to develop a medicine that would only go to the place where something is broken, I need to know how to get there. The new wave of biotechnology that's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR.