NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-18-2025 8AM EDT

Episode Date: May 18, 2025

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These days, there's a lot of news. It can be hard to keep up with what it means for you, your family, and your community. Consider This from NPR is a podcast that helps you make sense of the news. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a story and provide the context, backstory, and analysis you need to understand our rapidly changing world. Listen to the Consider This podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Giles Snyder. Authorities in the Southern California resort town of Palm Springs say they're investigating a major explosion as an act of terrorism.

NPR's Jason Drozd is in Palm Springs. The FBI says a car that exploded outside a fertility clinic late Saturday morning has left one person dead and several others injured. Akhil Davis is assistant director in charge of the FBI in Los Angeles. Make no mistake, this is an intentional act of terrorism. The FBI is working with Palm Springs law enforcement. Andy Mills is chief of police for the city.

This is gonna take a great deal of time for us to process this scene. There are blocks of debris. Large areas of the city's commercial core surrounding the American Reproductive Center's building are blocked by police barricades. Jason DeRose, NPR News, Palm Springs, California. Authorities have not released the name of the suspect, but say investigators are not looking for anyone else.

Friday night, severe weather that hit parts of the Midwest and South is being blamed for killing at least 27 people, including 18 in Kentucky alone. In Indiana, officials say the storms caused chaos at a popular state park. George Hale of member station WFIU reports from Nashville, Indiana. Mike Hale Brown County State Park is particularly popular with equestrians and operates a camping area equipped to accommodate horses. The camp site was nearly at capacity Friday evening when a tornado ripped through it. Department of Natural Resources regional manager Carl Lindell drove past the splintered remains of hitching rails and overturned horse trailers Saturday

afternoon. He says flying debris killed one horse and injured at least one more. Yeah, it happened right during the storm event. Three campers also sustained non-life threatening injuries. The campground and horse trails are closed until further notice. For NPR News, I'm George Hale in Nashville, Indiana. Tens of thousands gathered in St. Peter's Square today to mark the official beginning of Pope Leo XIV's papacy, Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio among the foreign dignitaries at the mass in which Leo called for peace and unity and Pr. Ruth Sherlock was there. At his inaugural mass, Pope Leo XIV's main message is what he called his great desire

for a united church, a sign of unity and communion which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world. Pope Francis, so popular with liberals inside and outside the church, was nonetheless a divisive figure. He upset many conservatives, many traditionalists in the church. Many hope that this pope will be able to bring these different sides together in such a polarized world. They hope that there will be some greater sense of unity in the church. MPR's Ruth Sherlock reporting from St. Peter's Square.

This is MPR. New York City Mayor Eric Adams says the Brooklyn Bridge did not suffer major damage when a Mexican Navy sailing ship struck it last night, shearing off the top of its masts and killing two crew members. He says multiple people aboard the ship needed medical attention. Nineteen were injured, four were seriously injured. They were removed to Bellevue Hospital, a total of 277 were on board and they're properly being taken care of. Officials caution that initial reports that the ship had a mechanical issue are preliminary. The cause remains unclear and investigation is underway. City officials say traffic on the bridge was allowed to resume after an inspection.

say traffic on the bridge was allowed to resume after an inspection. The International Chess Federation says it deeply regrets the decision by the Taliban to ban the game of chess in Afghanistan, as Nperia's Diya Hadid reports. The International Chess Federation says that it's consulting with international sports bodies to try to find a constructive solution. It's unclear if one will be found. A Taliban spokesman says that chess is a form of gambling which is forbidden in Islam. A former head of the chess Federation shared a letter on X that he wrote to the Taliban pleading

with them to lift the ban, reminding them that chess spread through the world through Muslim travellers. It's just the latest of many Taliban prohibitions. In swaths of the country, televisions are not allowed to broadcast images of living creatures. Music is forbidden. Women suffer the worst, banned from all aspects of public life. Dear Hadid, NPR News, Mumbai. And I'm Giles Snyder.

This is NPR News from Washington.