Headline on Justice Alito's Retirement Is Premature

Justice Samuel Alito is still on the Supreme Court, despite what an NPR story briefly claimed on Tuesday. The outlet pulled a piece by longtime court correspondent Nina Totenberg that incorrectly reported SCOTUS had announced the 76-year-old justice's retirement, reports the New York Times. A Supreme Court spokesperson labeled the report "inaccurate." By late morning, NPR had replaced the article with a brief editor's note acknowledging the error and stating the story had been retracted.

"Neither Alito nor the court's public information office has announced his retirement," the outlet noted. An NPR spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to questions about how the mistake occurred; the archived retracted article can be seen here. Forbes notes that whispers about Alito's possible retirement have circulated since April, when he had a brief hospital stay, during which he was treated for dehydration.