NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-16-2025 6PM EDT

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. The Supreme Court has kept in place a temporary block preventing the Trump administration from deporting migrants it accuses of being members of a Venezuelan gang. As NPR's Adrian Florido reports, the court said migrants targeted under the 18th century wartime law must get due process. The case was brought by two Venezuelan men at a Texas detention center who were set to be deported last month under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The ACLU filed an emergency lawsuit and blocked the deportations.

The government appealed, but the Supreme Court has rejected, for now, its request to be allowed to deport the men or anyone else under the law. It said migrants must get more time to challenge their deportations. The 7-2 majority wrote that giving them about 24 hours to do that quote, surely does not pass muster. They sent the case back to a lower court for further arguments on whether the government

is using the law legally. Adrian Florido, NPR News. big beautiful bill has hit a roadblock in the House Budget Committee. MPR's Tamara Keith has reaction from the White House. Fiscal conservatives on this key committee are balking at the bill, but this isn't the end of the story. Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said the White House will continue to have conversations over the weekend to strongly urge House Republicans to support the bill, describing it as a generational opportunity. Levitt added that the White House expects all Republicans to vote for this bill. This bill is the main legislative vehicle for President Trump's agenda, including big tax cuts and cuts to spending on programs including Medicaid

and food assistance for the poor. In an earlier social media post, Trump demanded unity and said, quote, we don't need grandstanders in the Republican Party. Tamara Keith, NPR News. Authorities in New Orleans are pursuing a group of inmates who were able to escape from a jail there. Authorities say at least three of the escapees were being held on charges of second degree murder. New Orleans police superintendent Ann Kirkpatrick says 10 inmates broke out, though she says one person was captured after a brief chase through the French quarter. We can confirm for you that we were able, and OPD was able to at least apprehend one of the escapees. I do not have a confirmation on the name just yet. The person obviously is not speaking.

It appears the inmates were able to escape through a hole in a cell wall concealed behind a toilet. The Orleans Parish Justice Center is in lockdown. Guards noticed the inmates missing during a routine head count this morning. A big deal in the cable TV world where Charter Communications and Cox Communications confirmed today they're tying the knot in a $34.5 billion deal. The merger combines two of the biggest cable companies in the country. Cox says as part of the deal it will acquire Cox Communications, Commercial Fiber, and Managed IT and Cloud Business. The transaction still needs regulatory approval. Stocks gained ground

on Wall Street. The Dow is up 331 points. This is NPR. The science magazine Nature has announced the winners of this year's Scientist at Work photo contest. Here's NPR's Ari Daniel. Each winning image is a dramatic intimate portrait of research. In one, a scientist kneels in a forest beaming at eight tiny frogs in her hands. In another, a researcher crouches atop a foggy mountain as he measures the cloud forming around him. And then there's the riveting photo that Emma Vogel, a spatial ecologist at the University

of Tromsø took, aboard a little boat in a Norwegian fjord. In the center of the photo you see my supervisor and he's in this bright yellow survival suit. Behind him is a large fishing boat and hundreds of seagulls. Over his shoulder, you can just make out. A killer whale surfacing. It gives me a feeling of a dreamlike state. Vogel studies how whales interact with fisheries. To her, this image captures the patient intensity of fieldwork. R.A. Daniel, NPR News. Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, X.A.I., now says it appears an unauthorized modification was to blame for the company's Grok chatbot posting false

claims on social media about the persecution and quote genocide of white people in South Africa. You mean someone within the company made the change that directed the chatbot to respond the way it did to queries though the company's not disclosing any more than that. XAI did say the incident violated its internal policies and core values, it's just the latest example of chat bots generated by AI and trained on large data sets coming out with troubling responses. Crypto futures prices moved higher at week's end. I'm Jack Spear in PR News in Washington.