NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-09-2025 9PM EDT

Episode Date: May 10, 2025

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Am I a propagandist? A truth teller? An influencer? There's probably no more contested profession in the world today than mine, journalism. I'm Brian Reed, and on my show, Question Everything, we dive head first into the conflicts we're all facing over truth and who gets to tell it. Listen now to Question Everything, part of the NPR Podcast Network. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. President Trump leaves for the Middle East Monday. NPR's Franco Ordoniez reports Trump will travel to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates for his first policy-focused foreign trip of his second term. The White House says the trip will highlight greater cooperation in the region, where it

says extremism is being replaced with commerce and cultural exchanges. Trump also plans to visit with U.S. troops stationed at the Al Udeid airbase outside of Doha and Qatar. Trump strode into office promising to bring peace in the Middle East quickly and stop Iranian advances toward becoming a nuclear power. He also wants to persuade Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel, joining what's known as the Abraham Accords. But those efforts have been complicated by the ongoing war in

Gaza, and with little progress to announce, Trump and the Gulf leaders are expected to focus less on the quest for peace and more on making business deals. Franco Ordonez, NPR News. Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter has died at the age of 85. NPR's Nina Totenberg has more. Souter, appointed to the Supreme Court by a Republican president, was an old-fashioned conservative who was initially a centrist on the Supreme Court, but as the court grew more conservative, he voted more and more reliably with the court's liberal justices.

Political conservatives were so infuriated by his drift to the center-left that the next time there was an opening on the court, their rallying cry was, no more suitors. But over his 19-year tenure, suitor came to be widely admired by all of his colleagues. As Chief Justice Roberts put it in a statement on Friday, Souter, brought uncommon wisdom and kindness to a lifetime of public service. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington. Pope Leo XIV celebrated his first mass since being chosen as the designated successor to Pope Francis.

Leo, the first U.S.-born pope in the 2,000 Pope Francis, Leo the first US-born pope in the 2000-year history of the Catholic Church, processing into the Sistine Chapel and blessing cardinals as he approached the frescoed altar. And Burish Jason DeRose reports. Much of it was formal, of course. It was, after all, in the Vatican Sistine Chapel and cardinals processed in in their white chausables and mitres. But Pope Leo didn't wear the red slippers that Benedict wore.

Instead, he wore rather the black shoes that Francis wore. There were the traditional multiple Bible readings, two by women, one in English and one in Spanish. And the sermons started in English and then switched to Italian for most of it. Leo acknowledged the great responsibility placed upon him before delivering a brief but dense homily in Italian on the need to spread Christianity to a world that sometimes mocks it. Leo will formally be installed as Pope in a mass on May 18th. Stocks drifted

to a mixed close on Wall Street today, the Dow was down 119 points. This is NPR. An international court will try Russian leaders for the crime of aggression against Ukrainians and that has now moved a step closer to reality. Terry Schultz reports more than three dozen countries have signed on to a plan to create such a tribunal. Meeting in Lviv, Ukraine, foreign ministers from almost 40 countries, more than half of them European, signed a document marking the conclusion of the legal framework for the new tribunal.

It will pursue Russian decision-makers for the crime of aggression in starting the full-scale war against Ukraine. Because Russia does not belong to the International Criminal Court, the ICC cannot prosecute Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders, making a new body necessary. EU foreign policy chief Kayakalis is among its strongest backers and called for more countries to join. Because if there is no accountability, we will see this happening again.

Former President Joe Biden had backed the creation of the court, but President Trump withdrew that support. For NPR News, I'm Terri Schultz in Brussels. It may not make some drummers happy, but apparently even a monkey can keep the beat. That's based on a new analysis showing chimpanzees drum with regular rhythm when they beat on tree trunks, in many cases with their own signature styles.

Scientists looked at hundreds of instances of drumming to come up with their conclusion. Researchers say it would appear to show the ability to produce rhythm dates back more than six million years. It's long been believed that drumming is a form of long-distance communication. The research is published in the journal Current Biology. Critical futures prices moved higher today oil up more than a dollar a barrel to $61.01 a barrel in New York. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington.

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