NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-12-2025 6AM EDT

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Kristen Wright. For at least the next 30 days, President Trump is putting Washington, D.C.'s police department under federal control and sending 800 guard members to the streets of the nation's capital. He declared a crime emergency. Civil rights groups protested near the White House. Jesse Rabinowitz is with the National Homelessness Law Center. Locking up people you don't like or don't want to see as textbook authoritarianism. testing opinion by focusing on groups that he believes to have little public sympathy,

like folks who live outside. Right now, they are coming for homeless folks, trans folks, and migrants. But rest assured, soon they will come for everyone who is not a white, straight, cis, wealthy Christian man. Violent crime hit a 30-year low in D.C. last year. Mayor Muriel Bowser called Trump's move unsettling and unprecedented. The Attorney General for the district says his office is considering all options. The president suggested he could take similar action in other cities. President Trump says he wants to see what Russian President Vladimir Putin has in mind as far as ending its war with Ukraine. The two leaders are meeting for a summit in Alaska Friday. Today, European leaders are warning that the path to peace can't be decided without Ukraine.

Environmental groups are back in court in Miami today, challenging construction of an immigration detention center in Florida's Everglades. NPR's Greg Allen reports, a federal judge, has put the installation of lighting, paving, and other building on hold while she hears the lawsuit. Officials say they're expanding the facility they call alligator Alcatraz to hold as many as 5,000 detainees. After two days of hearings, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams said she found, quote, a sufficient likelihood that Florida and the Trump administration had violated federal law by rushing construction without first seeking public. input or conducting an environmental impact assessment. She ordered a two-week halt on construction activity while the lawsuit proceeds. Lawyers for Florida and the Trump administration present their case today. A second lawsuit brought by civil rights groups who say detainees' constitutional rights are being violated is set for next week. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami. An explosion at a steel plant near

Pittsburgh has killed two people and sent at least 10 to the hospital. From member station WESA, Kylie Kaczynski reports, investigators are trying to piece together what happened. U.S. Steel's Clarton Coke Works plant is considered the largest coking operation in North America. Rescue officials said a fire started at the plant shortly before 11 a.m. Before an explosion sent black smoke whirling into the sky above the Monongahela Valley. Residents reported the explosion could be felt at least two miles away from the facility. Clarton Cokeworks is located about 15 miles south of Pittsburgh. For NPR news, I'm Kylie Kaczynski, in Pittsburgh.

This is NPR News. Singer Sheila Jordan has died at the age of 96. She was considered one of the great voices in jazz, but she wasn't well known outside of that world. Jordan died at her apartment in New York City, her longtime bassist, told NPR. NPR's NDA Ullaby has this remembrance. Sheila Jordan was born to a family without much money in Pennsylvania coal country.

She told NPR in 2014 that she was unhappy as a kid, and the only thing she could do about it was sing. And then one day she spotted something on a jukebox, Charlie Parker and his reboppers. And I put my nickel in, and up came bird playing now's the time. I said, that's the music. That's the one I'll dedicate my life to. Jordan, who was white, became good friends with Parker and went on to work with many black jazz artists. Her voice was unlike any other. I was unwise with eyes unable to see.

She never really hit the big time, but in 2012, the National Endowment for the Arts named Sheila Jordan a jazz master, and she kept performing even into her 90s. Netta Ulibe, NPR News. Asian markets closed mostly higher today after President Trump delayed raising tariffs on U.S. imports from China for another 90 days. Japan's Niki hit a record high. Trump signed an executive order extended. ending the trade truce with China yesterday. This keeps Beijing from hitting back with

retaliatory tariffs for now and gives more time for the world's two biggest economies to negotiate a trade deal. Trump threatened a tariff of 145% on Chinese goods earlier this year. This is NPR.