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--:-- Leila Fadel: On day four of his presidency, Congress is giving Trump his first legislative win. A bill was sent to the president's desk that will make it easier to detain and deport people without legal status.
--:-- Michelle Martin: I'm Leila Fadel, that's Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Scientists around the country started getting emails yesterday. The National Institutes of Health was canceling meetings where scientists try to figure out what research needs federal funding.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It was pretty vague. It said that it's canceled, that they can't offer any further explanation at the time.
--:-- Leila Fadel: How will this impact health research?
--:-- Michelle Martin: And after two delays because of wildfires in the L.A. area, today Oscar nominations are finally announced. Who will make the list?
--:-- Leila Fadel: Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.
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--:-- Leila Fadel: This message comes from BetterHelp. President Fernando Madeira describes how BetterHelp Online Therapy has helped him.
--:-- Fernando Madeira: For me, sometimes I just need to go and talk to somebody that is not going to judge me, right? Is going to be there and going to listen to me. And I can start just saying, look, I'm not feeling right today. And it feels natural. I love it.
--:-- Leila Fadel: To get matched with a therapist, visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR for 10% off your first month.
--:-- Leila Fadel: This message comes from NPR sponsor AARP. Where do you see your career in 12 years? What are you doing now to help you get there?
--:-- AARP Representative: The sooner you start enhancing your skills, the sooner you'll be ready. That's why AARP has management, finance, and small business reskilling courses, all to help your income live as long as you do.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Because the steps you choose to take today will help you love what you do in the future. Learn more at aarp.org slash skills.
--:-- Michelle Martin: President Trump's promise to crack down on illegal immigration is moving forward on two more fronts this morning. Yeah, NPR has learned the Pentagon will be sending roughly 1,500 active duty troops to the U.S. border with Mexico.
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: And on Capitol Hill, Congress passed the Lake and Riley Act, a bill that makes it easier to detain and deport anyone in the U.S. without legal status if they've been charged with a crime.
--:-- Michelle Martin: NPR immigration policy reporter Ximena Bustillo has been following all this, and she's with us now in our studios in Washington, D.C. to tell us more about it.
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: Good morning, Michelle. So let's start with the Lake and Riley Act. This will be the first immigration bill that President Trump will sign. What exactly will it do?
--:-- Michelle Martin: The bill makes it easier for federal immigration authorities to detain and deport anyone without legal status for crimes like shoplifting, assaulting a police officer, or causing bodily harm to another person.
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: The bill is named after a Georgia woman who was killed last year by a Venezuelan man who was in the U.S. without legal status. Supporters argue that this will increase public safety.
--:-- Michelle Martin: The man, who was sentenced to life in prison for killing Riley, had previously been charged with shoplifting.
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: Proponents say that if he had been detained by immigration officials sooner, Riley might still be alive. But others oppose the bill and say that it bypasses due process, since a person won't have to be convicted of a crime to be detained or deported.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Immigrant rights groups also argue that research shows immigrants commit fewer crimes than those born in the U.S.
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: These same advocates say the bill also pushes a false narrative about a connection between crime and immigration status.
--:-- Michelle Martin: You know most Democrats opposed the bill but some did support it. I mean enough that it can credibly say it passed with bipartisan support.
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: What does that say about the politics of immigration right now?
--:-- Michelle Martin: Right. This time around, 46 Democrats in the House joined Republicans in supporting it.
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: When the bill passed the Senate, 12 Democrats voted for the bill. That is one sign of how some Democrats are shifting on immigration, especially after Trump made immigration a central plank of his campaign.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So in terms of enforcement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, will have to do a lot of heavy lifting here. How well will they be able to implement this so they have the resources to do all this?
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: It's going to be very difficult. ICE is one of the federal agencies responsible for deportations.
--:-- Michelle Martin: In a memo obtained by NPR, the agency warned that implementation of the bill was impossible to execute within existing resources.
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: They said that it would cost $26 billion to implement in the first year.
--:-- Michelle Martin: This money is needed for more than 100,000 new beds and hiring more than 10,000 enforcement and removal personnel, which all, of course, takes time to scale up.
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: The agency also warns that it expects some state and local law enforcement agencies to refuse to cooperate.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And have Republicans answered this? What have they said about this concern?
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: Republican senators told me last night that they're looking to give ICE the resources it needs through the budget process.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Okay, let's turn back to those troops that are headed to the southern border. What do we know about what they're going to be doing there? What's their assignment?
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: The acting Secretary of Defense said on Wednesday that roughly 1,500 ground personnel, as well as helicopters and intelligence analysts, will be going to the southern border to increase detection and monitoring efforts.
--:-- Michelle Martin: They will also help with building physical barriers along the border and provide military airlifts to support the Department of Homeland Security with deportation flights.
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: This comes after the White House effectively closed off asylum at the southern border, ordering agents to immediately deport anyone who crosses between ports of entry.
--:-- Michelle Martin: That is NPR's Ximena Bustillo.
--:-- Ximena Bustillo: Thank you.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Turning now to science, researchers around the country are concerned after the National Institutes of Health canceled key meetings.
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: The move comes after federal health officials were told to halt all public communications until they could be reviewed by a Trump appointee.
--:-- Michelle Martin: NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin is here to tell us more.
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: Good morning, Michelle. So what do we know about what's behind these cancellations?
--:-- Michelle Martin: Well, what happened is that scientists around the country started getting emails yesterday about travel and meetings that had been set up being suddenly canceled with very little explanation.
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: Remember, NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world. It invests more than $40 billion in research every year, and it gathers together scientists outside the agency into what are called study sections to help them figure out how to spend that money, what research is the most important to fund.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Dr. Crystal Starbird is a cancer researcher and a professor at UNC Chapel Hill, and yesterday she got an email about her study section that was scheduled for next week.
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: It was pretty vague. It said that it's canceled, that they can't offer any further explanation at the time, and it thanked us for our service to the NIH.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Okay, this may be basic, too basic, Selena, but could they be rescheduled a little later on?
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: Well, Dr. Starbird told me that these are not the kinds of meetings that can easily be rescheduled. There are a lot of moving parts, different institutions, different timetables, and a delay, especially an indefinite delay like this one, could really have a negative impact on important cancer research.
--:-- Michelle Martin: The full scope of these cancellations isn't clear at this point, but a lot of scientists are concerned that biomedical research of all kinds could be disrupted.
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: Also this week, the Department of Health and Human Services put a freeze on external communication. Could that be the reason that these meetings were canceled or suspended or postponed?
--:-- Michelle Martin: We don't know yet if it's related, but yes, the acting HHS secretary on Tuesday sent a memo instructing the leaders of NIH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, all the other health agencies to refrain from most external communication until they can be approved by, quote, a presidential appointee.
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: NPR obtained that memo and several internal emails that indicate travel is suspended for HHS staffers as well, in addition to the government-wide hiring freeze.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So workers I've heard from at HHS are quite concerned about all of this.
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: Several said they weren't sure if information in papers that were set to be submitted and published this week will be delayed.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So we're waiting to see if infectious disease dashboards will be updated on schedule.
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: And, you know, Michelle, looming over all of this is the fact that in Trump's first term, there were instances of political appointees attempting to alter CDC reports on COVID-19.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So some worry that these developments are a sign that political appointees intend to exert a new kind of control on the federal health and research agencies.
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: And all this is coming while the leadership at HHS is still in limbo.
--:-- Michelle Martin: What do we know about what's next for Trump's nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: Well, his confirmation hearing was just scheduled for next Wednesday.
--:-- Michelle Martin: There has been a big lobbying effort to block his confirmation.
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: It's not clear if he does have the support in the Senate to be confirmed, particularly because of his positions in favor of abortion access and against vaccine requirements.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And adding to that uncertainty is an ethics document posted online yesterday that appears to show Kennedy can still financially benefit from lawsuits against Merck's vaccine that prevents cervical cancer.
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: So definitely it's going to be an interesting hearing next week, and I'll be here to cover it.
--:-- Michelle Martin: That is Selena Simmons-Duffin.
--:-- Selena Simmons-Duffin: Thank you.
--:-- Michelle Martin: After a series of delays due to the wildfires in Los Angeles, nominations for the 97th Oscars were announced this morning.
--:-- Linda Holmes: Emilia Perez received 13 nominations, followed by Wicked and The Brutalist, with 10 each.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Here to tell us all about it is NPR pop culture correspondent Linda Holmes.
--:-- Linda Holmes: Linda, good morning. Welcome back.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Thanks, Linda.
--:-- Linda Holmes: So let's start with Emilia Perez. one of the clear favorites heading into today.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Yes, absolutely. It picked up 13 nominations. It is the most ever for a film that is not in English.
--:-- Linda Holmes: Carla Sofia Gascon becomes the first out transactor to be nominated. This is also obviously a big deal for Netflix, which has wanted for many years to get a Best Picture win, has never gotten one.
--:-- Michelle Martin: I'm sure they're feeling quite good about that.
--:-- Linda Holmes: Amelia Perez was nominated not just in those kind of top line categories, but also for things like score and cinematography.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It was just broadly embraced by the people doing the nominating.
--:-- Linda Holmes: It was kind of a divisive movie that a lot of people didn't like, but Academy voters absolutely went for it. It part of an increasing embrace of non-language movies at the Oscars.
--:-- Michelle Martin: You can count films like Roma and Parasite Last year both Anatomy of a Fall and Zone of Interest.
--:-- Linda Holmes: So this is in some ways an extension of that.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And we should note, by the way, that The Brutalist and Wicked all got 10 nominations each, which in any other year would be newsmaking totals also.
--:-- Linda Holmes: It's just a year where a small number of movies took up a lot of the oxygen.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Anything you were surprised about?
--:-- Linda Holmes: The only real surprise in the best picture category is probably I'm Still Here, which is a Brazilian drama about a woman coping with the death of her husband who was a political dissident.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Voters chose that film over things that were maybe a little bit more favored, like A Real Pain, which is kind of a road movie about two cousins with Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin.
--:-- Linda Holmes: I was really surprised that the excellent score of the tennis movie Challengers wasn't nominated.
--:-- Michelle Martin: That was my favorite score of the year.
--:-- Linda Holmes: Same goes for the cinematography of the drama Nickel Boys, which is wonderfully evocative and creative and wasn't nominated.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And Marianne Jean-Baptiste wasn't nominated for the Mike Lee film Hard Truths.
--:-- Linda Holmes: I think that was a heartbreaker for a lot of folks.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Probably my happiest, maybe, surprise was the original screenplay nomination for Sing Sing, which is a wonderful film about the theater program at Sing Sing Prison.
--:-- Linda Holmes: Some of the real incarcerated people who were part of that theater program appear in the film and helped work on the screenplay.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And it was wonderful to see some of those names in the nominations list.
--:-- Linda Holmes: Right, right. Coleman Domingo for best actor for Sing Sing. 100%.
--:-- Michelle Martin: That movie is great. I hope everybody will seek it out.
--:-- Linda Holmes: It's wonderful. It's always, I don't know, surprising is right, the right word.
--:-- Michelle Martin: But, you know, 10 pictures nominated for Best Picture, but only five nominees for Best Director.
--:-- Linda Holmes: And so you're always wondering, okay, so you got Best Picture nominee, but not the director.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Like for Nickel Boys, for example, he wasn't nominated, even though...
--:-- Linda Holmes: Absolutely. And as I said about the cinematography, that's just a wonderfully creative film. They did some amazing things with the visuals of the filmmaking.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Another one I hope people will seek out.
--:-- Linda Holmes: But yeah, you're absolutely right. Ten Best Pictures, only five directors.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Okay. So when do we find out who won?
--:-- Linda Holmes: So the ceremony is on March 2nd.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And while there have been a few rumbles about whether they should go ahead with it, given obviously the fires that have been causing so much devastation in the LA area, it looks like that will go ahead right now.
--:-- Linda Holmes: So there's a little more than a month for a fresh round of speculating about which of these nominations will actually emerge as winners.
--:-- Michelle Martin: That is Linda Holmes.
--:-- Linda Holmes: She hosts NPR's podcast, Pop Culture. Happy Hour.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Thanks, Linda.
--:-- Linda Holmes: Thank you, Michelle.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And that's Up First for Thursday, January 23rd.
--:-- Michelle Martin: I'm Michelle Martin.
--:-- Leila Fadel: And I'm Leila Fadel.
--:-- Michelle Martin: For your next listen, consider, consider this.
--:-- Leila Fadel: The team behind NPR's All Things Considered goes deep into a single news story in just 15 minutes.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Today's episode of Up First was edited by Jason Breslow, Diane Weber, Claire Lombardo, Olivia Hampton, and Alice Wolfley.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It was produced by Ziyad Butch, Chris Thomas, Milton Guevara, and Claire Murashima.
--:-- Leila Fadel: We get engineering support from Zach Coleman, and our technical director is Carly Strange.
--:-- Michelle Martin: We hope you'll join us again tomorrow.
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