NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-03-2025 4PM EST

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

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The Trump administration has been quietly dismissing scores of the country's immigration judges, and especially those judges who defended immigrants during their days as lawyers. I was operating under the assumption that I would be fired and that there was nothing that I could do. It's all part of this huge project to reshape who can come to America and who can become American. That's on Code Switch from NPR. Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The Pentagon's Inspector General concluded that, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth could have put U.S. troops in harm's way by sharing information

over a signal in March about a pending U.S. airstrikes in Yemen. And P.R. Seidre Walsh has more. A classified IG report delivered to Capitol Hill found that Secretary Hegseth risked potential compromise of information that could have endangered the safety of U.S. personnel in the mission by using the messaging app signal. That's according to a source briefed on the report who was not authorized to speak publicly. If intercepted by a foreign adversary, it could have led to harm. Hegeseth did not agree to an interview with investigators, but submitted written responses. He noted he has the authority to declassify material, but there was no indication he did before he shared it. An unredacted version of the report is expected to be released on Thursday.

Deirdre Walsh, NPR News. We should note, Catherine Marr, the CEO of NPR, chairs the board of the Signal Foundation. President Trump is rolling back Biden-era fuel economy standards for the auto industry. We're officially terminating Joe Biden's ridiculously burdensome, horrible, actually, cafe standards that imposed expensive restrictions and all sorts of problems. Gave all sorts of problems to automakers. Under the Biden administration, carmakers were required to increase fuel efficiency of passenger vehicles and light trucks to about 50 miles per gallon by 2030. that would also encourage electric vehicle sales. Reuters reported that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

proposed reducing the requirements from 2022 to 2031 model years to around 34 miles to the gallon. President Trump has pardoned Democratic Congressman Henry Quayar and his wife in a federal bribery and conspiracy case on social media. Trump alleged that the couple was prosecuted because of the representative's criticism of former President Biden's immigration policies. New Orleans is the latest target of the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration. Melbridges with Meprosation W. W.N.O. reports customs and border patrol officers are arriving in the city.

The Department of Homeland Security says it's sending federal agents to address, quote, criminal illegal aliens roaming free and says local authorities are not cooperating with U.S. immigration and customs enforcement. The Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office is under a federal consent decree, which prohibits them from holding people suspected of being in the country illegally beyond their release state. The FBI and Louisiana State Police have rolled out a joint effort to prevent citizens from interfering with federal immigration officers. Other Democratic-led cities like Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Charlotte, have also seen major immigration enforcement efforts. For NPR News, I'm Melbridges. U.S. talks have ended the day higher with the Dow closing up more than 400 points.

This is NPR News. The Food and Drug Administration is reporting a recall of Great Lakes cheese products, because they might have metal fragments. More than 260,000 cases of the shredded cheese were sold in 31 states in Puerto Rico at several retailers, including Aldi, Walmart, and Target. Great Lakes cheese issued the voluntary recall. Glitches in the middle of video calls may be more than annoying. Some new experiments show that technical hiccups may undermine your success in everything from job interviews to court hearings.

NPR's Nell Greenfield, Phil Boyce, explains. A team of researchers did experiments by simulating some common video call scenarios, like health consultations or sales pitches, to see how people in glitch-free video calls are perceived, compared to people whose videos have brief, free, lags, or audio echoes. The results in the journal Nature show that glitches when a person was speaking resulted in that person being perceived as less likable or trustworthy. The researchers also studied some real-world data from parole hearings that were, conducted over video and found that technical glitches significantly reduced the chances that someone would get parole. Dell Greenfield Boyce, NPR News. Spotify Rapt is unwrapping its latest present to fans this holiday season. The streaming service has named Bad Bunny as the artist with the most plays in 2025. It's the fourth such honor for the superstar from Puerto Rico. And he surpasses Taylor Swift for

that distinction. The Dowell closing up, more than 400. Points of 47,882. It's NPR News. I'm Jesse Thorne. Rapper Vince Staples has his own TV show. It's a TV show in which he stars, a TV show for which he wrote entire episodes. Hard work, right? No, it took like 10 minutes. It doesn't have to rhyme. Vince Staples, the Pride of Long Beach. That's Bullseye. Find us in the NPR app, Maximum Fun.org, or wherever you get your podcasts.