The Headlines - New Pushback to Trump’s Deportations, and Climate Research Under Threat

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Plus, a capybara controversy in Argentina. On Today’s Episode: Judge Threatens Contempt Proceedings Over Deportation Flights to El Salvador, by Alan FeuerMaryland Senator Unable to Secure Meeting With Deported Immigrant in El Salvador, by Robert JimisonTrump Waved Off Israeli Strike After Divisions Emerged in His Administration, by Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt, Maggie Haberman and Ronen BergmanMusk’s Team Is Building a System to Sell ‘Gold Card’ Immigrant Visas, by Ryan Mac and Hamed AleazizTrump Cuts Likely to Curtail Study of Climate Change’s Health Effects, by Maggie AstorCalifornia Is Taking Trump to Court to Stop His Tariffs, by Shawn Hubler and Soumya KarlamanglaTexas Is Poised to Create a $1 Billion Private School Voucher Program, by Dana Goldstein and J. David GoodmanOne Town Says, Yes, You Can Have Too Many Capybaras, by Jack NicasTune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. 

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Amelia Nirenberg, in for Tracy Mumford. Today is Thursday, April 17th. Here's what we're covering. The Trump administration is facing new pressure in the courts and from members of Congress over its high-profile deportations to El Salvador. Yesterday, a federal judge issued an ultimatum to the Trump administration in the case of dozens of Venezuelan men who were flown to a prison there earlier this year. The judge, James Boesberg, said he would open

an investigation into whether the administration is in contempt of court if it doesn't let the men challenge their deportations. Boesberg had ordered officials to stop their deportation flights last month, but the flights continued, and the men had been detained with little to no due process after President Trump invoked a wartime powers act. The Supreme Court later struck down the judges' ruling on procedural grounds, but Boesberg said administration officials can still be held responsible if it turns out they willfully ignored his order.

He said he's considering a range of options to determine who specifically is responsible for disobeying his instructions. That could include calling in officials to testify under oath. Meanwhile, in El Salvador, I'm asking President Bukele to do the right thing and allow Mr. Abrego-Garcia to walk out of a prison, a man who's charged with no crime, convicted of no crime, and who was illegally abducted from the United States. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, traveled to the country to call attention to another controversial immigration case, the Trump administration's wrongful deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego-Garcia.

Ben Holland accused the administration of lying when it claimed Abrego-Garcia, who was living in Maryland, had ties to a violent gang and called for his immediate release. This is an unsustainable and unjust moment, so it cannot continue this way. But he said the country's vice president told him that El Salvador will continue to hold Abrego Garcia since the U.S. is paying the country to keep him and other deportees locked up. Van Hollen also said his request to visit the prison where he's being held was denied, even though some Republican officials have been granted access.

I may be the first United States senator to visit El Salvador on this issue, but there will be more and there will be more members of Congress coming. Beyond Senator Van Hollen, a number of Democratic members of Congress are also considering making the trip down to El Salvador, not only just to advocate for the release of Mr. Urbago Garcia, but also to continue to use this as a platform to push back more broadly against President Trump's immigration reforms and the way that his administration is hoping to crack down on migrants in the United States. My colleague Robert Jimmison has been reporting from El Salvador on Van Hollen's trip.

He says that for many Democrats, new alarm bells went off earlier this week when President Trump suggested he'd be open to sending even more people to El Salvador's prisons, including American citizens convicted of violent crimes. Robert says the Democrats are now trying to use Abrego Garcia's case to draw a line in the sand. There's concern about if we let this case go through and continue on the trajectory that it is, where is the line? Where is the Trump administration going to stop? And so if they don't put up the fight this time,

there's concern that it will give the Trump administration carte blanche to continue to trudge ahead with no obstacles in enacting any sort of policy agenda that they hope to up to some pretty extreme forms. The Times has learned that President Trump persuaded Israel to hold off on a major offensive against nuclear sites in Iran. Israel had been planning a days-long bombing campaign against the sites that was set to start as soon as next month. It had hoped the attacks would slow down Iran's progress toward developing a nuclear weapon. The Israeli attack would have required significant American involvement, and Israel hoped that

the U.S. was on board. There were some signs that was the case. The Pentagon had already moved some aircraft carriers and bombers into the region, in part to back Israel up. But as the plans took shape, some of Trump's top aides grew increasingly concerned that the strikes could set off a broader regional conflict and that the U.S. could be drawn into an all-out war. So Trump waved off the attack, and for now has opted for diplomacy with Iran. He reopened negotiations with the country over its nuclear program last weekend. Top Iranian and U.S. officials will meet this weekend to continue the talks. It's a sharp reversal from his first term when he tore up an Obama-era nuclear deal.

So far, it's not clear exactly what his team is trying to get Iran to agree to this time around. Now three more quick updates on the Trump administration. The White House is pushing forward with its plan to create special immigration visas that Trump has called gold cards. Trump says the U.S. will sell the cards for five million dollars a piece. In exchange, people would get permission to live in the U.S. The project is being led by members of Elon Musk's team, who are meeting with various

agencies to build out an application process for the cards. It's an expansion of the role of Musk's team, are meeting with various agencies to build out an application process for the cards. It's an expansion of the role of Musk's team, moving beyond cost-cutting efforts to projects designed to raise revenue for the government. Also, the National Institutes of Health has indicated it will cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for research into the health effects of climate change.

In an internal document, the NIH said scientists should remove all mentions of climate change and stop prioritizing that research. That will drastically limit the study of what effect extreme climate events like wildfires and heat waves have on human health. A range of conditions, from asthma flare-ups to a higher risk of strokes,

have already been linked to climate change. And, President Trump's trade policy is facing its largest legal challenge yet. Yesterday, California's governor and attorney general filed a lawsuit against Trump, saying that his flurry of tariffs is unlawful and should not be enforced. Trump has argued that a 1970s law gives him the power to unilaterally enact new tariffs. But California, which is one of the largest economies in the world, is arguing that only Congress has that power. There being 85 ayes and 63 nays, SB2 is passed to engross...

In Texas, private school choice activists have scored a major victory as state lawmakers voted to create one of the country's largest taxpayer-funded school voucher programs. If the plan is signed into law, as expected, parents would get thousands of dollars to spend on private school tuition or homeschooling costs. Democrats and other critics say that this kind of voucher system could strain public school budgets and lead to larger class sizes there. But many conservatives have long argued that vouchers are essential for parents who want to take their kids out of underperforming public schools, and that competition from private schools will force public education to improve.

That movement picked up steam during the pandemic as Republicans in particular started pushing for more parental control over education. Texas was the last major Republican-led state to enact the vouchers. Now supporters of private school choice say they'll turn their attention toward Washington, where President Trump has indicated he's in favor of pushing to spread the policy nationwide.

And finally, I'm Jack Nickus, the Brazil bureau chief for the New York Times. And I recently traveled to the wealthy suburbs of Buenos Aires in Argentina, where they are dealing with a rodent problem, a very big rodent problem. You could say the world's largest rodent problem because they're dealing with capybaras. Capybaras, the laid back dog sized rodents have become a darling of the modern internet. They're plump, they're mellow, they're, can we just say it, adorable. But in a ritzy suburb of Buenos Aires, they're also multiplying. The capybara population has tripled in recent years, and the gated community of Nor Delta is now dealing with a rodent problem that some say is of its own making.

Over the past several decades, there has been an enormous boom of development in this region. And now this gated community is one of Argentina's most famous. It's got artificial lakes, mansions, a shopping center, and a golf course. But what that has done is essentially driven the capybaras out of the forest and into the suburbs. The moment I passed the security gate, there were capipibaras grazing on the medians, dozing on the volleyball courts, waiting in the artificial lagoons, and I even saw numerous Kaipibara crossing signs.

They have caused traffic accidents, they've eaten people's gardens, and on a few occasions they have attacked some of the community's dogs. And as a result, now the community is doing something about it. They're deciding to sterilize the Kaipibaras. They hope that this will work and the Kaipibara's population will slowly fall and get under control. But the reality is they're not exactly sure what the results will be. The growth of Kaipibaras in North Delta has caused a real debate inside of the community. Some neighbors feel they're a nuisance, but many other neighbors are trying to defend the capybaras,

arguing that it's not that the animals invaded our neighborhood, we invaded theirs. Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, a look at the government's anti-trust case against the tech giant Metta and what its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has said on the witness stand. That's next in the New York Times audio app, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amelia Nierenberg. We'll be back tomorrow.