NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-16-2025 8PM EDT

Episode Date: May 17, 2025

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Imagine, if you will, a show from NPR that's not like NPR, a show that focuses not on the important but the stupid, which features stories about people smuggling animals in their pants and competent criminals in ridiculous science studies, and call it Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me because the good names were taken. Listen to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Yes, that is what it is called wherever You Get Your Podcast. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. The Supreme Court has weighed in on President Trump's use of an 18th century law to remove

a group of Venezuelan immigrants, justices with just two dissenting votes temporarily blocking the administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act, continue to fast track deportations of Venezuelan men or halt fast track deportations of men, but accused of being gang members. Imperial Serrero Martinez Beltran says it's a blow to the administration's efforts and could be a prelude to larger issues. It is a significant loss for President Trump. Remember, he's pledged to remove millions of migrants without legal status from the

U.S. and the Alien Enemies Act is one of the tools he's using. He's already removed more than 100 Venezuelans under this law, and they've been sent to El Salvador, not even their home countries. And there are still unresolved questions. The big one is whether the use of the Alien Enemies Act is legal or not. And that's a question the courts and potentially the Supreme Court will have to answer at some point. NPR's Sergio Martinez Beltran. President Trump is touting billions of dollars in new artificial intelligence deals with the United Arab Emirates.

NPR's Bobby Allen explains it was part of the president's Middle East tour where he emphasized investments over foreign policy. Qualcomm says it's developing a new global engineering center focused on AI in Abu Dhabi. Amazon said it will help boost cloud services in the country. And a new AI campus will be built aiming to make the UAE a regional hub for tech. It follows the White House celebrating another flurry of business deals in Saudi Arabia. In both cases, details remain murky and some of the agreements had been in the works before this week's announcement. Some others predate Trump's presidency altogether. Still, Trump is taking credit. The White House said this week that Trump is quote, the deal-maker-in-chief. Silicon Valley

executives support the agreements with the authoritarian states, hoping the oil-rich countries can help power the next wave of AI. Bobby Allen, NPR News. A closely watched survey of consumer sentiment finds the lowest rate of confidence in the economy in three years. As Quinn Kleinfelder, a member of station WDET, reports, the results show increasing fears about the effects of President Trump's tariffs on inflation. The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index dropped just a bit since last month, but the director of the survey, Joanne Shue, says after a brief bump following President

Trump's election, consumers' confidence in the economy has steadily declined, especially as the U.S. has opened new fronts in its trade wars. People are concerned that inflation's gonna come roaring back. And inflation has been the number one thing on people's minds for several years now.

And they're really worried and concerned about cost of living. Shue says a more complete picture should emerge at the end of the month, when results will reflect consumer response to the U.S. scaling back tariffs on China. For NPR News, I'm Quyen Kleinfelter in Detroit. Stocks gained ground to close out a winning week on Wall Street. The Dow was up 331 points.

The Nasdaq rose 98 points. This is NPR. The head of the company that makes the weight loss drug, Wagovi, says he is stepping down Lars Fjordgaard Jorgensen, CEO of Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, announcing his decision to leave the company, coming by mutual agreement with the company's board. The announcement follows Novo Nordisk citing recent market challenges and a sharp drop in its share price. Novo Nordisk last week downgraded its sales and profit forecast and has been seen its share price falling by more than 50% since the middle of last year.

Scientists say they've uncovered some secrets about how flamingos feed. As NPR's Jeff Bromfield reports, it's not as elegant as you may 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 Orteja-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 Jimenez 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. Critical futures prices as tired weeks end oil up 87 cents a barrel to settle at $6,249

a barrel in New York. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington.