NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-01-2025 6PM EDT

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. President Trump is planning to move his national security adviser, Mike Walz, from the White House to the United Nations. As NPR's Asthma Holland reports, the president is nominating Walz to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to the UN. Walz had come under pressure the last several weeks after he accidentally invited a journalist to a private text chat among Trump administration officials about military strikes on the Houthis in Yemen.

In public, the president defended Waltz and downplayed the incident. Even in making this announcement, the president praised Waltz for putting the nation's interests first. This is the first major personnel shakeup of Trump's second term. The president made the announcement on his social media site saying that in the interim Marco Rubio will be national security adviser in addition to his existing job as a secretary of state. Asma Khalid, NPR News, The White House. The Department of Veterans Affairs says it is ending a mortgage rescue program

that has saved more than 17,000 veterans homes. Thus, despite the fact tens of thousands of other vets and their families still need help, many could get foreclosed on in the future. Here's NPR's Chris Arnold. The rescue program is called VASP. It was set up in part to fix a previous VA error that had stranded about 40,000 veterans and left them on the verge of foreclosure. VASP stands for the VA Servicing Purchase Program and gives vets a new low-interest rate loan that they can afford. But it hasn't been fully up and running very long, so many vets still need this rescue.

But now, the Trump administration says it's ending the program, which will strand many of those vets all over again. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress want to pass legislation to help, but that could be many months away. In the meantime, thousands of vets are likely to lose their homes. Mortgage and housing groups are calling on the VA to reconsider. Chris Arnold, NPR News. US factories are in a slump as managers struggle with President Trump's new tariffs. NPR Scott Horsley reports on a new factory survey from the Institute for Supply Management.

The president's tariffs are supposed to help domestic manufacturers, but factory managers say they're having the opposite effect. New factory orders and output were down last month, while prices and delivery times were up. Managers say supply chains have been paralyzed by the size of the import taxes and the confusing way they keep changing. Tim Fiore, who oversees the monthly survey, says factories had been on the cusp of a boom before the president launched his trade war.

That's the sad thing that we could be on a growth profile here if not for the administration trying to change the way the entire world does business. The trade war is also hurting factory exports as other countries look elsewhere for manufactured goods. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington. Stocks closed mostly higher on Wall Street today, driven up in part by better than expected earnings from tech giants Microsoft and Metta. The Dow gained 83 points, the Nasdaq was up 264 points.

This is NPR. The Food and Drug Administration was among the federal agencies that instituted major layoffs, but now it looks like at least some of those workers will be hired back. The agency says it will rehire some employees who handle overseas travel bookings for FDA inspectors. Food scientists focused on testing and research also say they've been invited to return. Staffing at the FDA was slashed by an estimated 20 percent as part of the Trump administration's government efficiency efforts. May Day protests across the U.S. are drawing tens of thousands of demonstrators. NPR's Windsor Johnston is in Washington, D.C., where protesters are using the holiday

to call for social justice, fair wages, and comprehensive immigration reforms. Isabella Cabrera is a 22-year year old college student from upstate New York. She says she's furious about how the White House is handling its crackdown on non-citizens, especially those who are living in the country on a legal basis. I have a lot of family that are Hispanic and I am also Hispanic and this scares me not only for my family but for fellow Hispanics. Peter Fontenot is from Springfield, Virginia. He says the Trump administration is failing to uphold the Constitution.

They're thumbing their noses at one of our foundational documents. Other demonstrators came out to demand an end to immigration raids and efforts to bust up unions. Windsor-Johnston, NPR News, Washington. Crude futures prices after some recent downturns moved in the other direction today oil up more than a dollar a barrel to settle at 59.24 a barrel in New York. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington.