NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-09-2025 5AM EDT

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

NPR News: 05-09-2025 5AM EDTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now, with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what. To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dave Mattingly. Pope Leo XIV is celebrating his first mass

following yesterday's historic election. Cardinal Robert Prevost is the first American to lead the Catholic Church as Pope. NPR's Sylvia Pagioli has more from Rome. 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. That's NPR's Sylvia Paggiolli. Catholics in the Chicago area are celebrating Pope Leo XIV as a native of the Windy City. Michael Puente with member station WBEZ reports. Cardinal Robert Previls grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago, which have suffered economic decline over the decades. His home parish,

St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church in Dalton has been closed and abandoned for more than a decade. But within an hour of Prevost being named the first ever American Pope, people began to stop to take pictures, pray, and even weep. Mary Simons was among them. I found out that the Pope was from here. This is his church. I said, I better get over there because it's very exciting. It's a historical moment. Others who

arrived said they hope the church can reopen and turned into a basilica. For NPR News, I'm Michael Puente in Chicago. President Trump is appointing Fox News host and former judge and prosecutor Jeanine Pirro to serve as interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. As NPR's Elena Moore reports, the president announced the move after pulling the nomination of his first choice for the job, Ed Martin. In a post on social media, Trump praises Pirro and says she's, quote, incredibly well qualified for this position.

Janine Pirro previously served as district attorney of Westchester County in New York, but she left that job 20 years ago. Since then, she's become a prominent face on Fox News and other conservative media. She has a record as a fierce defender of Trump and notably she promoted false claims about the 2020 presidential election.

It's unclear when the Senate will consider Pirro's nomination to be interim US attorney for the nation's capital. Alaina Moore, NPR News. Democratic lawmakers are denouncing President Trump's decision to fire the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden. She was the first woman and first African American to hold that job. This is NPR News. A group of Democratic voters in Wisconsin is asking the state Supreme Court to declare the state's current congressional maps to be unconstitutional. As Mayon Silver with member station WUWM reports from Milwaukee, a

similar lawsuit was rejected last year. The lawsuit seeks to have the state's eight congressional district lines redrawn ahead of the 2026 midterms. Republicans currently hold six of eight congressional districts, even though Wisconsin is relatively evenly split in national and statewide elections. The new petition argues that the court's decision to redraw maps for state legislative districts in 2023 has opened the door to revisiting maps for U.S. House districts. J.R. Ross, editor of whispolitics.com, argues that even if Democrats were to win in state court, you could get the U.S. Supreme Court involved.

And if that happened, it makes it really, really tough to see new lines in place for 2026. For NPR News, I'm Ayaan Silver in Milwaukee. Prosecutors in Wisconsin are filing charges against the father of a teenage girl who carried out last year's deadly shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison. A student and a teacher at the school were killed in the attack in a study hall.

Six others were injured. Jeffrey Ruppnau faces two counts of intentionally giving a dangerous weapon to a person under the age of 18 causing death and contributing to the delinquency of a child. The charges are felonies. Prosecutors say the father allowed his daughter access to semi-automatic pistols. I'm Dave Mattingly, NPR News in Washington. A lot of short daily news podcasts focus on just one story. I'm Dave Mattingly, NPR News in Washington.