NPR News Now - NPR News: 06-06-2025 6PM EDT

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janene Herbst. Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, who was deported by mistake to El Salvador almost three months ago, is en route back to the U.S. where he's now been indicted. He's accused of conspiring to transport migrants illegally. NPR's Cereo Martinez Beltran has more. According to the Department of Justice, Kilmar Abrego-Garcia made money transporting migrants without legal status from Texas to other parts of the U.S. This over a span of nine years, starting in 2016. The news comes as Abrego-Garcia returns to the U.S. after being deported to El Salvador

in March, despite a 2019 court order shielding him from removal to his home country. His case has become a flashpoint for both the Trump administration and immigrants rights advocates as the push to streamline deportations clashes with the requirements of due process. In a statement, Abrego García's lawyer says the DOJ's move is, quote, an abuse of power, not justice. Sergio Martinez Beltrán, NPR News. The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to step in and allow it to continue dismantling the Department of Education. NPR's Corey Turner has more.

The administration needs the Supreme Court's help after a federal judge in Massachusetts told the administration to reinstate the nearly 1,400 employees it has already put on leave on the way to firing them. The judge's concern was that the department, at roughly half its former size, was failing to perform important duties. In its request for the Supreme Court to intervene, the Trump administration argued, "...the Constitution vests the executive branch, not district courts, with the authority to make judgments about how many employees are needed to carry out an agency's statutory functions. It's not clear how quickly the

court will move or what it will decide. Kori Turner, NPR News. Veterans groups opposed to the Trump administration's plans to cut staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs gathered today on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. And Pierce Quill Lawrence has more from the scene. Hundreds, maybe thousands of veterans are out here on the mall at a demonstration they're calling Unite for Veterans, Unite for America. There have been a lot of people talking about threatened cuts to the VA and how that could affect veterans' health care.

People have been mentioning the changes in the Trump administration's policies on letting Afghan allies who worked with American service members overseas, on letting them get visas. And it's probably something of a partisan crowd. But if you ask them, they'll say that these issues are nonpartisan. These are just about veterans' health care and veterans' benefits. NPR's Quill Lawrence reporting from the National Mall. Crude oil prices higher by the close, gaining 2.2% today to end the day at $64.77 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. This is NPR News. M-Pox cases, previously known as Monkeypox, continue to rise across many African countries.

Over 64,000 suspected cases have been reported this year. NPR's Jonathan Lambert reports the outbreak is now the most severe in Sierra Leone, where hospitals are struggling to keep up. More than half of all new Empox cases reported last week were in Sierra Leone. That's according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least 15 people have died and there aren't enough hospital beds where patients with painful lesions and severe fever can be treated. The outbreak seems to be driven primarily through sexual contact. Vaccines could help get cases under control, but Sierra Leone has so far received

a tiny fraction of the vaccines shipped to Africa since the outbreak took off last year, nowhere near enough to slow the spread. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News. The number of measles cases in the U.S. has quadrupled this year so far. That's compared to last year, and it's nearing a 30-year high. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there have been 1,168 confirmed measles cases across 33 states. Last year, there were just 285 measles cases in the U.S. Among the nationally confirmed cases, the CDC says 95 percent are among people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown.

A third measles case death in New Mexico happened to an unvaccinated adult. I'm Janene Herbst, and you're listening to NPR News from Washington.