NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-30-2025 9AM EDT

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

NPR News: 04-30-2025 9AM EDTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Imagine, if you will, a show from NPR that's not like NPR, a show that focuses not on the important but the stupid, which features stories about people smuggling animals in their pants and competent criminals in ridiculous science studies, and call it Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me Because the Good Names Were Taken. Listen to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Yes, that is what it is called wherever you Get Your Podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korova Coleman. President Trump is marking 100 days in office this week.

He rallied last night with supporters outside Detroit. Trump celebrated his numerous executive actions targeting subjects from immigration to terrorists. But NPR's Tamara Keith says Trump also noted some critics are opposed to what he's doing. Last night Trump complained repeatedly about polls he said couldn't possibly be valid. That's the raft of public polls out in recent days indicating Trump has the lowest approval rating at the 100 days mark of any president in 80 years. And like in his first term, significant parts of Trump's agenda are being held up in the courts.

The courts and the polls are the two biggest hints of gravity that Trump is experiencing right now. NPR's Chamber Keith reporting. The federal government says growth in the US economy shrank in the first three months of this year. The US economy declined three-tenths of 1% from what it was a year ago. That's very different from the annual 2.4 percent U.S. economic growth seen in the last three months of last year. The S&P 500 stock market index is down 7 percent since the president took office. That is the worst performance during a president's first 100 days in office in several decades. And as Laura Walmsley

reports, many Americans have been anxious about their retirement accounts. Laura Anderson is 61 and teaches at a university in Cincinnati. She had been planning to retire in five or six years, but the market turmoil has given her pause, even after finding that her 401k hadn't dropped as much as she feared. I just feel like there's so much uncertainty right now that I still don't feel like my original retirement plan is going to be doable. Amy Rowland of Salt Lake City shares that uncertainty. Part of me retiring is kind of that feeling,

yeah, it is probably time for my generation to step aside, but we can't do it if we don't think we can survive our retirement years. It's a feeling that may cause those who can to keep working. Laurel Wamsley and PR News. President Trump has opened a new front in his battle with the media. He has targeted the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. NPR's David Falkenfleck reports the CPB is now suing the White House.

The White House sent an email to three of the five members of the CPB board saying they had been fired and thanking them for their service. Thing is, it's not clear Trump has the power to do that. As it noted in legal filings, federal law states the CPB is not a government agency. The attempted firings are part of Trump's larger effort to strip public broadcasting of taxpayer funds. He says he'll ask Congress to pull back more than a billion dollars already allocated by lawmakers for public broadcasting for the next two years. PBS and its member

stations rely on federal funds from CPB for 15 percent of their revenues. For NPR member stations, it's 10 percent on average. NPR itself receives just 1 percent directly and a bit more indirectly in fees paid by stations. David Falkenfleck, NPR News. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. A federal judge is opening a hearing this morning in Vermont. Columbia University student Mohsen Madhawi is asking to be released from federal detention. His lawyers say the Trump administration is trying to deport him for political activism. Immigration officials want Madhawi to remain behind bars.

He has not been charged with any crime. The only predominantly black all-female unit to serve in Europe during World War II has now been awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. One unit member was Puerto Rican, another was Mexican. And Piers Rachel Triesman has more. The 6888, as it's called, was a mostly black all-female unit that made history by deploying to England in early 1945. Their mission was to sort through backlogs of undelivered mail for American service members. The women worked around the clock to clear some 17 million pieces of mail

in just three months, half the expected time. After working in France, they returned home in 1946 without any public recognition for decades. Congress bestowed the award and President Biden signed the law in 2022. Only two of the 855 women lived to see this medal ceremony. Rachel Triesman, NPR News. Severe thunderstorms in Pennsylvania yesterday have killed two people. Two men died by electrocution in separate incidents.

Both were affected by live power lines. Weather forecasters say the powerful storms had gusts that reach hurricane strength. The tracking site, poweroutage.us, says nearly 450,000 customers in Pennsylvania do not have electricity. You're listening to NPR News. Want to know what's happening in the world? Listen to the State of the World podcast. do not have electricity. You're listening to NPR News.