NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-16-2025 11PM EDT

Episode Date: May 17, 2025

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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, I'm Dale Willman. The Supreme Court has kept in place a temporary block

that prevents the Trump administration from deporting migrants that it accuses of being members of a Venezuelan gang. As NPR's Adrian Florida reports, the court said migrants targeted under the 18th century wartime law must get due process. The case was brought by two Venezuelan men at a northern Texas detention center who were set to be deported last month under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The ACLU filed an emergency

lawsuit and blocked the deportations. The Supreme Court has rejected the government's request to be allowed to deport the migrants or any others in northern Texas, saying they must get more time to challenge their deportations. The 7-2 majority wrote that giving them about 24 hours to do that, quote, surely does not pass muster. The court has not yet ruled on whether the government's use of the Alien Enemies Act is legal. Adrian Flodillo, NPR News. NPR has learned that the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOJ, has attempted to assign a team to the Congressional Watchdog, the Government Accountability Office. MPH's Chris Arnold has more. Since its inception, DOJ has been strong-arming its way into government agencies,

gaining access to sensitive data, and directly or indirectly firing workers. NPR has learned, and a GAO spokesman confirms, that Doge is trying to assign a team to the Watchdog Agency, citing an executive order from President Trump. But the GAO is an independent agency that's part of the legislative branch, in other words Congress, not the White House. So GAO says it is not subject to executive orders and has therefore declined Doge's request. Meanwhile, the Watchdog agency has dozens of investigations underway into whether the White House violated the law by freezing funding that had already been allocated by Congress.

Chris Arnold, NPR News. A new poll by the American Psychiatric Association shows that two-thirds of adults are anxious about events unfolding around the world, and more than 60 percent say they're somewhat or very anxious about keeping themselves and their families safe. Amperes, Ruta Chatterjee explains. Around 60 percent of poll respondents also said they're anxious about paying their bills and their health. And among employed adults who participated in the survey, 40 percent are somewhat or very worried about job security. About 8 percent had lost a job and nearly a quarter knew someone who had recently lost a job. And two-thirds of employees are very concerned about their financial well-being.

Ritu Chatterjee, NPR News. Consumers' sentiments in the U.S. fell slightly in May. It's the fifth monthly drop in a row. Americans are expressing concern that President Trump's trade war will worsen inflation. The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan's index shows the consumer sentiment dropped 2.7%. That's its lowest reading since June of 2022. You're listening to NPR News.

The House Budget Committee will vote again on Sunday on President Trump's tax breaks and spending cuts bill. In a vote on Friday, four conservative Republicans voted against the measure, and that prevented the bill from being reported out of committee, the four demanding larger cuts to Medicaid and the green energy tax breaks. Scientists have uncovered some secrets about how flamingos feed. As NPR's Jeff Brumfield reports, it's not as elegant as you might think. Flamingos are graceful, iconic birds until it's dinner time.

This video from the San Diego Zoo captures just how weird they look when they eat. They bob their heads in and out of the water, chatter their bills, and stomp their feet. Victor Ortega-Gimenez is a researcher at UC Berkeley. One obvious question is what are they doing with their feet? People say that they are dancing. It turns out they're not. Ortega-Gimenez worked with a group at Georgia Tech that showed the foot stomping, beak chattering, and bobbing was all designed to stir up and trap tiny shrimp and other food in the water.

The food gets swept up in swirling vortices, then the flamingo scoops it up with its bill. The work appears in this week's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jeff Brumfield, NPR News. Officials in New Orleans say ten men broke out of prison on Friday by leaving through a hole hidden behind a toilet. Two of the prisoners have been caught, but the others remain at large. Police say there's some evidence that suggests the prisoners had help in their escape from

someone within the sheriff's departments. I'm Dale Willman, and you're listening to NPR News. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things and other currencies. Wilman and you're listening to NPR News.