NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-12-2025 12AM EDT

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

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On this week's Wild Card podcast, Wanda Sykes says she can have a hard time understanding God. What is the plan, man? You know? What is the lesson here? Yeah, it's like, oh boy, you are in a pickle right now, God. What you gonna do about this? I'm Rachel Martin.

Wanda Sykes is on Wild Card, the show where cards control the conversation. Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman. Negotiating teams from both the US and China have ended two days of trade talks in the Swiss city of Geneva, as tensions remain between the world's two largest economies. As Villamarch reports, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said Sunday evening that parties to the talks had made what he called substantial progress. Besant and the US Trade Representative Jameson Greer talked up the quote productive discussions once they concluded, promising further details Monday. Besant's Chinese counterpart, the Vice Premier for Economic Affairs, Hiet-Lei Feng, announced a new consultation mechanism to continue the dialogue in a bid to end the massive trade disruption over tariffs at royal businesses and financial markets in recent weeks. That's Phil De Marques reporting. Catholic churchgoers attended the first Sunday mass

since the election of the first pope with Creole ancestry. KQED's Billy Cruz reports from a black Catholic church in Oakland, California. Inside the halls of St. Columba Catholic Church in Oakland, parishioners are celebrating the unique ethnic background of the new pope. We're already calling him cousin, because he's from the Seventh Lord in New Orleans. That's Ursula Morris, who grew up going to this church. Pope Leo XIV was born in Chicago, but his family has roots in New Orleans, through Creole and Haitian ancestors.

Father Kwame Asenyo says that helps put a spotlight on the Black Catholic Church. It tells those who are here, this pope is our guy too. I mean, it's going to move the church in the direction that our traditions and cultures also celebrate. For NPR News, I'm Billy Cruz in Oakland. A group of 49 white South Africans are now on their way to the US. They represent the first group of Afrikaners to be offered refugee status by the Trump administration. Afrikaners are a white minority group in South Africa. The group is expected to arrive at Dulles Washington Airport

outside Washington, DC on Monday. The FAA says there's been yet another telecommunications issue delaying flights at New ark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. As MPR's Joe Hernandez reports, it's the third known incident affecting air traffic control at the airport in recent weeks. The Federal Aviation Administration says the latest issue occurred in an area that guides planes in and out of Newark Airport's airspace. The agency says it temporarily slowed air traffic at the airport, but that operations have returned to normal. On Friday, the FAA reported a 90-second telecommunications outage

that also impacted radar for guiding aircraft at the airport. And late last month, air traffic controllers briefly lost all radar contact and communication with pilots. That led to hundreds of cancellations and delays at the airport just outside New York City. Last week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced a plan to update the aging technology used in air traffic control systems across the country. Joe Hernandez, NPR News. And you're listening to NPR News. And you're listening to NPR News. A British study has found that five minutes' worth of exposure to junk food ads is all

it takes to get children to overeat. Vicki Barker has more from London. Their research hasn't yet been peer-reviewed, but in a paper prepared for the European Congress on Obesity in Malaga, Spain, researchers from the University of Liverpool say children exposed to ads for products high in saturated fat, sugar and salt consumed an average of 130 extra calories that day. Video, audio or printed ads all had the same impact. It wasn't just ads showing food, merely seeing the logo of companies like McDonald's or KFC was enough to spur the 7-15 year olds in the study to snack or eat more.

The effect was stronger for children who were already overweight. They consumed 147 extra calories. For NPR News, I'm Vicki Barker in London. Hamas says it will release the last living American hostage in Gaza. Hamas says it will do so as part of its effort to establish a ceasefire, reopen crossings into Gaza and resume aid delivery. Eden Alexander is expected to be released within the next 48 hours. If that happens, it would be the first hostage release since Israel ended the last ceasefire in March. The Oklahoma City Thunder outplayed Denver in crunch time on Sunday, beating the Nuggets 92-87 that ties the second round NBA series at two games apiece. The Thunder overcame an eight-point deficit in the fourth quarter for the win.

The Indiana Pacers, meanwhile, decimated the Cleveland Cavaliers 129-109. I'm Dale Willman, NPR News. Does the idea of listening to political news freak you out? Willman, NPR News.