NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-09-2025 7PM EDT

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

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Jack Spear Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. The White House says it is considering suspending habeas corpus, a constitutional provision, preventing people from being unlawfully detained or imprisoned by the government. The idea comes within the context of the administration's fight against illegal immigration. More from NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben. Danielle Kurtzleben A reporter asked White House aide Stephen Miller if President Trump is considering suspending habeas corpus. Miller said yes.

Well, the Constitution is clear, and that of course is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. So to say that's an option we're actively looking at. The Trump administration often characterizes the large number of people entering the U.S. an option we're actively looking at. The mayor of Newark, New Jersey was arrested today to protest outside an immigration detention center. NPR's Joel Rose reports the incident marks an escalation in the fight between city officials and federal immigration authorities.

Newark mayor Ross Baraka was arrested after allegedly refusing to leave the detention center in his city. That's according to a social media post from Alina Habba, the interim US attorney for New Jersey. Three members of Congress from Northern New Jersey say they were also on hand to conduct, quote, oversight of the detention center.

The Department of Homeland Security accused them in a statement of, quote, storming the facility, but the members of Congress deny that. Immigration authorities have touted the reopening of Delaney Hall, which began holding detainees for ICE this month. The thousand-bed facility is one of the largest in the Northeast, but city officials say it does not have the proper permits to operate.

Joel Rose, NPR News. Pope Leo XIV celebrated his first mass since being chosen as the designated successor to Pope Francis. Leo was the first U.S.-born pope in the 2, the 2000 year history of the Catholic Church, processing into the Sistine Chapel and blessing the Cardinals as they approached the frescoed altar. Embiorous Jason DeRose has more. Much of it was formal, of course. It was, after all, in the Vatican Sistine Chapel and Cardinals processed in in their

white chausables and mitres. But Pope Leo didn't wear the red slippers that Benedict wore. Instead, he wore rather the black shoes that Francis wore. There were the traditional multiple Bible readings, two by women, one in English and one in Spanish, and the sermons started in English and then switched to Italian for most of it. Leo acknowledged the great responsibility placed upon him before delivering a brief but dense homily in Italian on the need to spend Christianity to a world that sometimes mocks it. It will formally be installed as Pope at a mass on May 18th.

Stocks drifted to a mixed close on Wall Street today, the Dow down 119 points, the Nasdaq was up a fraction. You're listening to NPR. Two men have been convicted of criminal damage for cutting down one of the most famous trees in Britain. It was called the Sycamore Gap tree near the border of England and Scotland. It was felled in 2023. NPR's Lauren Freyer reports from London.

It was an iconic tree featured on postcards and in the 1991 Robin Hood movie with Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman silhouetted beneath it. When the tree was felled with a chainsaw in 2023 in what prosecutors called a moronic act of vandalism, there was outrage across Britain and beyond. Now a court in northern England has convicted two men of two counts each of criminal damage, based on video of the act found on their phones and messages bragging about it. on video of the act found on their phones and messages bragging about it. They'll be sentenced in July. Meanwhile, rescued twigs and seeds from the old tree have been replanted and have started to regrow. Lauren Freyer, NPR News, London. Whether it will provide a celestial show as well as whether

it will hit the earth with a bang or a splash remains up in the air. When it comes to a piece of space junk from the former Soviet Union, Scientists say it's not entirely clear where or when a half-ton spacecraft that's spent the past 53 years in a decaying orbit will come down. Scientists say they expect a Saturday reentry of the titanium-covered spacecraft, which they say may not burn up entirely in the atmosphere as it makes its uncontrolled plunge back to Earth. Built to land on Venus, the Cosmos-42 spacecraft failed to carry out its mission.

Critical futures prices moved higher amid some optimism over upcoming U.S.-China trade talks. Oil rose a dollar a barrel to settle at $61.01 a barrel in New York. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington.