NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-01-2025 5PM EDT

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has yet another job on his hands. President Trump is asking him to be his interim national security adviser, replacing Mike Waltz, who's now on tap to be the next U.S. ambassador to the UN. Here's NPR's Michelle Kellerman. President Trump announced the changes on truth social just as State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce was briefing reporters at the State Department. We have to admit these last 100 days it's like hanging on to a freaking bullet train. She says Rubio has developed a close working relationship with Trump going to the White House several times a week. Walsh's relations with the president soured after he mistakenly added a journalist to

a group chat about sensitive military plans. Questions about that could follow him in a hearing to become the next U.N. ambassador. Trump had originally picked Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, but then asked her to stay in Congress to maintain a narrow Republican majority. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, Washington. As billionaire Elon Musk announced plans to scale back some of his work with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOJ, he's defending his job so far. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Musk gave somewhat hazy answers about the

work he's been doing, as well as DOJ's future. Musk estimates he's cut about $160 billion in government spending so far, but says it will be hard to get anywhere near his initial goal of $2 trillion. Musk says he wants to spend more time with his companies. The Trump administration is imposing a new testing requirement for vaccines. As NPR's Rob Stein explains, the man could delay the availability of vaccines, including the next round of COVID-19 shots. The Department of Health and Human Services says that all new vaccines must now be tested against an inert substance, a placebo, before they can be made

available. And while the administration isn't specifically naming the COVID vaccines, a spokesman indicated any update to the COVID vaccines would make them quote, new vaccines requiring this extra testing. The administration says this is necessary to ensure the safety of the vaccines. Critics say the move is unnecessary and could make it impossible to make updated vaccines available by next fall. Rob Stein and PR News. An exemption that would allow some low valuevalue imports from China to enter the U.S. duty

free officially comes to an end tomorrow. For consumers, it's likely to mean higher prices, combined with delivery delays, when the government begins to collect tariffs on every single shipment. Under the so-called de minimis rule, as many as 4 million low-value parcels coming to the U.S. every day, mostly from China, were exempted from duties. Stocks closed mostly higher on Wall Street today, driven in part by better-than-expected earnings from tech giants Microsoft and Metta. The Dow is up 83 points.

You're listening to NPR. A group of survivors of clergy sexual abuse is in Rome during the run up to the papal conclave. NPR's Jason DeRose reports they're drawing attention to the importance of choosing a new pope who will address abuse directly. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, has launched a project called Conclave Watch to track what cardinals have done or not done to clean up abuse. SNAP's Sarah Pearson says the church should do more to change the culture of deference that excused abuse,

but she also points out Pope Francis allowed bishops and cardinals to be investigated for abuse or coverup. We're using their system to file these reports, but we're also taking the investigation outside of the hands of these Vatican officials and putting it in the hands of survivors. Conclave Watch includes the formal reports SNAP has sent to the Vatican along with any supporting evidence the group has gathered.

Jason DeRose, NPR News, Rome. A Soviet-era spacecraft launched in the 1970s that was meant to land on Venus is apparently finally coming home, though not in the way space officials would have liked. Scientists keeping an eye on the half-ton mass of metal say it's expected to reenter the atmosphere later this month. It's still too early to tell where it will come down when it plunges back through Earth's atmosphere in uncontrolled descent. The spacecraft never left Earth orbit because of a rocket malfunction and for the past 53 years has been circling Earth in a decaying orbit. Critical futures prices gained ground today oil up more than a dollar a barrel to end

the session at 59.24 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington.