NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-20-2025 12PM EDT

Episode Date: April 20, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Nora Rahm. A standoff continues between two branches of government. The judiciary says the Trump administration must facilitate the return of Kilmore Abrego Garcia, who was illegally deported to a Salvadoran prison. The executive branch says he's now in the custody of El Salvador and nothing can be done. Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer, a Republican member of the third branch, defends President Trump.

He believes he's following the law. This is isolated incidents like the order that was issued after midnight this morning saying that they're going to delay some deportations so that the lower court process can continue. These will happen on a case-by-case basis. He was interviewed on CNN. More than 100 international students from around the country have joined a lawsuit against the U.S. government. They say their visa statuses were changed without reason. For Member Station WABE, Emily Wu-Pearson reports. In federal court, immigration attorney Charles Cook said about one-third of the students

had their visas revoked. Others received notices that they failed to maintain student status. The suit says the administration has removed the students from the system used by the Department of Homeland Security to maintain information mainly regarding international students and their status in the country. But Cook says all the plaintiffs were following the terms of their visas, had not been convicted of any deportable offenses, and that immigration and customs enforcement did not provide explanations as to why the visas were revoked or changed.

For NPR News, I'm Emily Woo-Pearson in Atlanta. The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 90 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza in the past 48 hours. But airstrikes are not the only cause of death in the war. NPR's Adil Al-Shalchi reports. It's been seven weeks since Israel blocked all aid, including food, into Gaza. It says it's a pressure tactic to get Hamas to accept a deal that will release more hostages. Fadi Ahmed said aid was scarce and food too expensive, making it hard to feed his 10-month-old son. After Ahmed's son got sick from the hunger,

doctors prescribed a special kind of milk, which helped for a while, until it ran out. He said that the nutritional supplement replacement made his son vomit uncontrollably. He said his son eventually passed away, diagnosed with malnutrition, chest infections and an oxygen deficiency. Open the crossings to let aid in, Ahmed said. Children are not to blame. Hadeel Alshalchi, NPR News, Tel Aviv. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky says Russia continues

to attack his country despite Russian President Vladimir Putin's unilateral declaration of an Easter ceasefire. The Russian Defense Ministry says that Ukraine launched hundreds of attacks overnight. This is NPR News in Washington. On this Easter Sunday, Pope Francis appeared in St. Peter's Square in his open-topped Pope-mobile to wave to the delighted crowd. He did not celebrate Easter Mass this year as he continues to recover from pneumonia. It's been 15 years since a BP oil rig exploded in what was then the Gulf of Mexico.

NPR's Debbie Elliott reports the deadly blast set off the worst marine environmental disaster in U.S. history. In the dark of the night on April 20, 2010, oil and gas erupted from a BP well nearly a mile deep in the Gulf off the coast of Louisiana. It caused the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to explode and catch fire, killing 11 rig workers and injuring more than a dozen others. Oil spewed unchecked from the Gulf floor for nearly three months, killing wildlife, polluting beaches and devastating Gulf Coast businesses.

Investigations and court rulings put the blame on a tragic series of safety failures. BP has paid some $70 dollars in judgments and settlements and for cleanup and restoration projects which are still underway 15 years later. Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Orange Beach, Alabama. A Soyuz space capsule landed in Kazakhstan this morning carrying two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut back to Earth. They had spent seven months on the International Space Station. NASA says they orbited the Earth more than 3,500 times. The agency also noted that today is the Americans birthday. Don Pettit is now 70 years old. I'm Nora Rahm, NPR News.