NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-13-2025 1PM EDT

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

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Know that fizzy feeling you get when you read something really good, watch the movie everyone's been talking about, or catch the show that the internet can't get over? At the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, we chase that feeling four times a week. We'll serve you recommendations and commentary on the buzziest movies, TV, music, and more. From low brow to high brow to the stuff in between, catch the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. Lyle from NPR News. I'm Lakshmi Singh. President Trump says he will order the end of U.S. sanctions on Syria. There is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace, Trump said as he was addressing an investor's forum in Riyadh today. Trump says Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with his Syrian counterpart later this week.

The president himself is expected to briefly meet Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharah on Wednesday. Sharah was once a member of al-Qaeda. Last year he helped lead the rebellion that overthrew the long-ruling Assad regime. Trump received a warm welcome when he arrived in Saudi Arabia, the first stop on his trip to the Middle East. The president then announced a series of US business deals with Saudi Arabia in what the White House said added up to a 600 billion dollar investment in the United States. They include 142 billion in arms deals from more than a dozen US firms

and 80 billion in tech investments from Google, Oracle, Salesforce, Uber and Saudi companies in both countries. A day after the British Prime Minister announced a tightening of his country's immigration rules members of his own center-left party are criticizing him not for his policy but for his language and Piers Lauren Freire has more from London. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said immigration makes Britain an island of strangers. That echoes an infamous 1968 speech by Enoch Powell, a former lawmaker denounced as racist for saying immigration made Britons strangers in their own country. Starmer's office rejects

the comparison, but many of his own lawmakers are criticizing him for it. Kevin Maguire is an editor at the left-wing Daily Mirror newspaper and spoke on local TV. Now when he wants to accuse the Conservative Party or reform of racism and bigotry, they will be able to turn around and say, what about you? That's a reference to the far-right anti-immigrant reform party which made gains in local elections here this month. Lauren Freyer, NPR News, London.

The CEO of United Health Group is stepping down as the massive health care conglomerate faces mounting business problems. More from NPR's Maria Aspin. United Health Group CEO Andrew Witte has presided over a terrible year for his company and for its industry of for-profit health care. His massive conglomerate owns UnitedHealthcare, the largest U.S. health insurer, whose CEO was shot in Manhattan last year.

The killing sparked a consumer backlash against high costs and denied claims of American health care. But UnitedHealth has also been facing mounting financial problems, especially in its Medicare business, as the senior citizens it ins ensures seek more medical care than expected. UnitedHealth said Witte is resigning for personal reasons. He was replaced by the company's former CEO and current chairman, Stephen Jay Hemsley. Maria Aspin, NPR News, New York. You're listening to NPR News.

Measles cases in Texas are still climbing. The Department of State Health Services website is now confirming eight more infected people since Texas' last count a few days ago. At least 717 people are known to have contracted measles so far this year. The outbreak is primarily in West Texas. Two unvaccinated school-aged children died after getting the measles. Researchers have been examining a group of female free divers in South Korea known for fishing in the frigid ocean waters on Jeju Island.

And Pierre's Ari Daniel reports on what's been learned about the heños and how it could help other people. When the heños were asked to dunk their faces in cold water, their heart rates dropped more than non-divers due to a lifetime of training. When it came to the genetics, everyone on the island, heños and non-heños, basically had the same genes, including two that stood out. One related to cold tolerance and one related to blood pressure that may offer protection from preeclampsia and other conditions like stroke. Wouldn't it be amazing if we can translate these findings to develop a therapeutic that

protects people from stroke around the world? Melissa Allardo is an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Utah. She says the extreme diving of the heños has changed not just their bodies the world. Melissa Allardo is an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Utah. She says the extreme diving of the Henyos has changed not just their bodies, but those of everyone else on the island who are descendants of divers. Ari Daniel, NPR News. The NASDAQ is up 327 points or 1.7 percent. I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News.