NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-13-2025 3PM EDT

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

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When Malcolm Gladwell presented NPR's Throughline podcast with a Peabody Award, he praised it for its historical and moral clarity. On Throughline, we take you back in time to the origins of what's in the news, like presidential power, aging, and evangelicalism. Time travel with us every week on the Throughline podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. President Trump is the guest of honor at a state dinner in Deir Eya, Saudi Arabia, capping a day of major announcements such as a $600 billion business deal with his host and plans to lift

sanctions on Syria. Tomorrow in Riyadh, Trump is expected to briefly meet with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharif, a former al-Qaeda member who helped lead the revolt against Syria's Assad regime. Trump's announcement at an investors' conference today in Riyadh drew resounding applause and visible approval from his host, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Trump remarked, quote, Oh, what I do for the Crown Prince, end quote. And Piers Ayyabutraoui says President Trump has a personal relationship with Gulf rulers that he says helps him get deals done for the U.S. Those personal ties are linked to his family's business interests in the Gulf.

You know, just less than two weeks ago, his son, Eric Trump, who runs the family business, the Trump Organization was in the region launching new projects. A Trump hotel tower in Dubai, a Trump golf course in Qatar. There's also money from the Gulf flowing into the Trump family's cryptocurrency venture. And Qatar has just offered Trump a new Boeing airplane to replace one of the aging Air Force One jets. And Piers Zia-Batraoui, the administration has formally ended temporary protective status for Afghans in the U.S. And Piers Quill Lawrence reports many Afghans who helped U.S. forces at war may be deported.

The White House says their country is now safe and Afghans no longer need to stay in the U.S. with temporary protective status. Human rights groups disagree and so do many veterans of the Afghan war like Jack McCain, son of the late U.S. Senator. Allies here in the United States who fought alongside people like me and who risked their lives and the lives of their families are at the very credible risk of deportation and in many, many cases, death. As it ends protection for Afghans, the Trump administration has flown dozens of white South Africans directly to the U.S. as refugees, stating without evidence that

they are facing a racial genocide in their home country. Quill Lawrence, NPR News. The U.S. and China are hitting a 90-day pause on tariffs, and that could mean a temporary break for American consumers. Here's NPR's Windsor Johnston. It's a move that could ease pressure on prices for everyday goods like electronics, clothing, and home appliances. Mark Wu is an international trade expert at Harvard University. He says the pause could lead to short-term price stability. Some of the shortages that consumers were worrying about for the summer are likely to

be staved off for some time as importers take advantage of the 90 days to restock inventories. But don't expect dramatic savings overnight. Analysts say price shifts typically take time to reach consumers and much depends on whether the pause becomes permanent or turns into a new round of trade uncertainty. That's Windsor-Johnston reporting. It's NPR News. Vaccine experts are questioning a big new project that the Trump administration has launched to try to create what's known as a universal flu vaccine. More

from NPR's Rob Stein. The Department of Health and Human Services will spend $500 million to try to create a flu vaccine that doesn't have to be updated every year. That's long been an elusive goal for vaccine researchers. But many vaccine scientists are puzzled by the new project, known as Generation Gold Standard. That's because the project is using an old technology that involves injecting people with whole viruses that have been inactivated

to make them harmless but still capable of stimulating an immune response. Vaccine experts say newer technologies are more promising and produce fewer side effects. Rob Stein and PRNews. The Portland Trailblazers say their NBA franchise is up for sale. The team discloses on the social media platform X that the estate of Paul G. Allen has begun the sales process and will direct all proceeds to philanthropy as the late owner had instructed. However, the NBA board of governors still has to ratify a purchase agreement. Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, bought the Trailblazers in 1988. Allen died in 2018 from complications of non-Hodgkin's

lymphoma. U.S. stocks are mixed this hour. The Nasdaq is up 1.8 percent. The S&P's risen nearly 1 percent. The Dow is down roughly half a percent. It's NPER.