NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-09-2025 11PM EDT

Episode Date: May 10, 2025

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These days, there's a lot of news. It can be hard to keep up with what it means for you, your family, and your community. Consider this from NPR as a podcast that helps you make sense of the news. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a story and provide the context, backstory, and analysis you need to understand our rapidly changing world. Listen to the Consider This podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman. The Trump administration is removing transgender troops from the military. As NPR's Quill Lawrence reports, this comes after the Supreme Court allowed a ban to be enforced while a legal challenge proceeds.

One of President Trump's first executive orders declared that trans troops were not fit to serve, though trans people have deployed to combat and served openly starting in 2016. The ban drew legal challenges, but the Supreme Court ruled that it can stand while those cases play out. Now, the Pentagon says about a thousand openly trans servicemembers will be removed, and medical records will be used to kick out other troops who have had a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. The total number of trans people in the military is believed to be under 5,000, about 0.2 percent of the force. Advocates say transgender Americans have served honorably and effectively and called the ban irreparably harmful to them and to U.S. security. Quill Lawrence, NPR News.

President Trump has fired all three Democrats serving as commissioners at the government's public safety agency and Piers Jacqueline Diaz has more. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is responsible for keeping dangerous items out of Americans' homes, but that independent agency is now a little weaker. That's according to two former commissioners of the agency. Richard Trumka Jr Alexander Hohenzirach and Mary T Boyle were fired from their roles on Thursday. This was after they refused to provide people from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOJ, access to agency data.

The now former commissioner said they also openly refused to cut staff despite pressure from DOge to do so. Other attempts by the Trump administration to replace officials at independent federal agencies have drawn legal challenges. At least two of the Consumer Product Safety Commissioners say they'll sue over their termination. Jacqueline Diaz, NPR News. Last February, President Trump signed an executive order that allowed white Afrikaans South Africans to apply for refugee status in the U.S.

At the time, he said the country was very dangerous. Despite the South African government saying that group remains one of the most privileged in that country, the first wave of people being admitted to the U.S. arrives this coming week. Kate Bartlett has more from Johannesburg. Three of the record sources have told me that about 54 Afrikaners have been interviewed and granted refugee status in the U.S. These three government sources don't wish to be named because they're not authorized to speak to the media. What we know at the moment is that a group of South Africans will be arriving on Monday at Dulles Airport. There they will be greeted with fanfare

by senior government officials and a press conference scheduled to be held. And after that, they'll be sent to their final destinations for a settlement. That's Kate Bartlett reporting from Johannesburg. Stocks drifted to a mixed close on Wall Street today. You're listening to NPR News. Pakistan's military says India fired three missiles listening to NPR News.

Pakistan's military says India fired three missiles at three air bases inside Pakistan, but they say most of the missiles were intercepted. The country's state-run television said retaliatory strikes were launched soon after the Indian missiles were launched. The attacks are the latest escalation in a conflict that began with a massacre last month that India blames Pakistan for. Two men have been convicted of criminal damage for cutting down one of the most famous trees in Britain.

It was called the Sycamore Gap Tree near the border of England and Scotland, and it was felled in 2023. NPR's Lauren Freyer reports from London. It was an iconic tree featured on postcards and in the 1991 Robin Hood movie with Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman silhouetted beneath it. When the tree was felled with a chainsaw in

2023 in what prosecutors called a moronic act of vandalism, there was outrage across Britain and beyond. Now a court in Northern England has convicted two men of two counts each of criminal damage based on video of the act found on their phones and messages bragging about it. They'll be sentenced in July. Meanwhile, rescued twigs and seeds from the old tree have been replanted and have started to regrow. Lauren Freyer, NPR News, London. The Women's World Cup will add 16 additional teams when the U.S. is expected to host the soccer tournament in 2031.

The governing board, FIFA, confirmed that increase on Friday. The U.S. will likely be co-hosting with Canada and Mexico. The men's tournament goes to 48 teams next year. FIFA says just one country has bid for both the 2031 and the 2035 women's events. I'm Dale Willman, NPR News. On this week's Wild Card Podcast, Wanda Sykes says she can have a hard time understanding I'm Dale Willman, NPR News.