NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-19-2025 1AM EDT

Episode Date: April 19, 2025

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These days, there is a lot of news. It can be hard to keep up with what it means for you, your family, and your community. Consider This from NPR is a podcast that helps you make sense of the news. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a story and provide the context, backstory, and analysis you need to understand our rapidly changing world. Listen to the Consider This Podcast from NPR. Shea Stevens Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Shea Stevens. President Trump is criticizing Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen for traveling to El Salvador to meet with an illegally deported Maryland man. The Trump administration has ignored multiple court orders to bring Kilmar Obrego Garcia back to the United States, insisting

that he belongs to a notorious gang. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele says Obrego Garcia is not his responsibility, as NPR's Domenico Montanaro reports. Clearly, Bukele is playing ball with the Trump administration. El Salvador is getting paid to house these deportees. And Trump even floated the idea of Bukele opening five more prisons to house homegrown criminals, in his words. In other words, U.S. citizens, something that would certainly be illegal. And yet the administration thinks it has the politics on its side when it comes to Abrego

Garcia, but it's a very fine line. Dominican-Montanaro reporting. The Trump administration is reclassifying 50,000 federal workers to make it easier to fire them. The move follows mass firings under Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. More from NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben. The Office of Personnel Management proposed a rule that would move the reclassification process forward.

Trump will still have to sign another executive order to implement it. The policy is also known as Schedule F, and it would remove federal civil service protections from around 2% of the federal workforce, according to the White House. Those workers would instead be at will employees who serve at the pleasure of the sitting president. The president wrote about the policy on social media on Friday saying, quote, if these government workers refuse to advance the policy interests of the president or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job. Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News. Thousands of people attended a vigil at Florida State University Friday to honor the two people

killed and six others injured in a mass shooting there. From member station WFSU, Kristen Wood has more. Students, faculty, and staff of the university poured onto Langford Green outside the school stadium to hear remarks and prayers from university officials. FSU President Richard McCullough led the vigil. I'm here for you. We're all here for you. Whatever you need, we will deliver to help you. That's what we do.

That's what makes Florida State special. FSU senior Mina Kendall attended the middle school next to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida when a shooting happened there in 2018. She says she feels numb after it happened again. People are crying around us and it's like, I've cried all my tears. For NPR News, I'm Tristan Wood in Tallahassee. President Trump says negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are coming to a head. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the United States will move on if no progress is made

in the coming days. This is NPR. United States and Iran are set to hold a second round of nuclear talks Saturday in Rome, hoping to find common ground. Officials from both sides have said the first round of talks last weekend in Oman was constructive. White House envoy Steve Witkoff leads the U.S. delegation, seeking to get to Iran to halt its Iranian enrichment. Iran's foreign minister says he believes agreements can be reached if the U.S. delegation seeking to get to Iran to halt its Iranian enrichment. Iran's foreign minister says he believes agreements can be reached if the U.S. does not make unrealistic

demands. A lawsuit is delaying plans to relocate 21 death row inmates at a federal facility in Indiana. George Hale of member station WFIU has the story. The ACLU is representing prisoners whose federal death sentences former President Biden commuted to life without parole last year. They say the Trump administration is getting even with the plan to ship them off to ADX Florence, the harshest prison in the federal system. Robert Dunham teaches death penalty law at Temple University.

I'm not aware of any circumstance in which the reduction of a prisoner's sentence has resulted in them being housed in more restrictive circumstances. The relocation push follows President Trump's Day 1 executive order instructing justice officials to ensure confinement conditions for clemency recipients align with the, quote, monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose. For NPR News, I'm George Hale in Bloomington, Indiana. Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to take part in a remembrance ceremony in Oklahoma City Saturday,

marking the 30th anniversary of the bombing of a federal building there. Clinton is to deliver the keynote address near a memorial for the 168 people killed in the attack. This is NPR News. You want to follow what's happening in Washington, D.C., 68 people killed in the attack. This is NPR News.