NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-08-2025 7PM EDT

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. It's been more than a hundred years since the last pope named Leo. And today the Vatican announced a Chicago-born missionary picked to be the next pontiff will be taking the name Leo XIV. Sylvia Pejoli is in Rome and there's more on the history of the name chosen by the man who will succeed Pope Francis. The last Leo was Leo XIII and he was known for his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, of new things. In it he outlined the rights of workers to fair wages, safe working conditions,

and the creation of trade unions. The document also affirmed the right to own property, free enterprise, and it was opposed to both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism. Leo XIII was called the social pope or the workers pope and he is really seen as the founder of the Catholic Church's social doctrine. Leo XIV is the first American pope. In public remarks day he emphasized peace, dialogue and missionary work. Some immigration experts are raising red flags over the Trump administration's latest deportation push. NPR's Windsor Johnston reports the president's plan to deport migrants to Libya could face a number of hurdles. The Trump administration wants to use wartime-era powers to deport certain migrants more quickly,

but opponents say the legal and logistical barriers are steep. Kathleen Bush Joseph is with the Migration Policy Institute. She says fast-tracking deportations strips away due process protections. We're really talking here about the bare minimum of process, of handing people a piece of paper, letting their attorneys know where the government is planning on sending them, and then giving people time. The Trump administration argues that swift removals are necessary to maintain national security and to deter unlawful entry. Windsor-Johnston, NPR News, Washington. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is

unveiling a sweeping plan to modernize US.S. air traffic control include upgrading tracking systems to ground radar and a revamped flight management system. More from NPR's Scott Newman. At a news conference with airline CEOs and the heads of the FAA and NTSB, Duffy cited January's deadly midair collision in D.C. and recent problems at Newark Airport as urgent reasons for action. He said President Trump is committed to solving the problem once and for all. He doesn't want to take this problem and pass it to the next administration, to the

next secretary, to the next set of victims. He didn't give a price tag but said with full funding from Congress, the overhaul could be done in three to four years. Scott Newman, NPR News, Washington. The Trump administration today unveiled what it's calling its first major trade deal, an agreement between the US and UK that would open up the British market

to American beef, ethanol, and other products if the British made cars and steel better access to the US. This is NPR. With the state under pressure from the Trump administration to change its law, Maine legislators heard from the public today on proposals to ban transgender athletes from girls and women's sports. Maine Public Radio's Maddie Smith has more.

Republicans in the Democratic-controlled legislature are seeking the ban. Most of the bills take aim at the Maine Human Rights Act and gender identity protections that have existed for years but have recently garnered national attention. GOP lawmakers say those protections are unfair to female athletes and violate the spirit of Title IX, a 1972 law meant to expand opportunities for women. Most Democrats argue the ban would further harm the already vulnerable transgender community. Maine's Governor Janet Mills clashed with President Trump over the topic during a meeting of governors at the White House. Maine is now the focus of a lawsuit by the Trump administration, which is attempting to pull Maine's $250

million in federal education funding. For NPR News, I'm Maddie Smith in Portland, Maine. It appears to find out how strong eggs are. You have to break a few. That's apparently the path researchers took in order to find out what's stronger, the side of the eggs or the ends. While conventional wisdom was eggs are stronger at their ends, it turns out the sides are stronger. Scientists say they ran simulations dropping nearly 200 eggs, horizontally and vertically from different heights.

To come up with the answer, they found the sides of the eggs were more flexible and absorbed more energy. The finding was published in the journal Communications Physics. Stocks gained ground on Wall Street today. The Dow was up 254 points. The Nasdaq rose 189 points. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington.