NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-22-2025 11PM EDT

Episode Date: May 23, 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 in Washington, I'm Shea Stevens. It is now up to the U.S. Senate to determine if a massive tax and spending plan will receive final congressional approval. As NPR's Claudia Grisales reports, Republicans in the chamber are facing an uphill battle.

Senate Republicans are already sharing plenty of skepticism about the House approved plan key to President Trump's domestic agenda. The package would extend tax cuts passed under Trump's first term, reshape immigration policy, and could eliminate Medicaid coverage for millions. Fiscal hawks blanch at adding $3 trillion in deficit spending, while moderate Republicans say cuts to Medicaid are a red line.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune will have to juggle those demands, plus Trump, who has been eager to unleash ire on any Republicans who buck the effort. The GOP hopes to get a final bill to Trump's desk this summer, a plan that includes a provision to lift the debt limit ahead of a critical deadline. Claudia Grisales, NPR News. A coalition of nonprofits is suing the Justice Department for freezing federal grants. As NPR's Ryan Lucas reports, the plaintiff said the decision was unlawful and potentially

harmful. The five organizations that are suing are from different states stretching from the West Coast to the East Coast. Their class action lawsuit says the Justice Department abruptly terminated more than 370 grants worth combined some $800 million, grants that help fund programs to reduce violence, provide services for crime victims, and address juvenile justice and child protection, among other things. The lawsuit says the termination was provided with no prior notice, no reasoned explanation, and in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution. The organizations are asking the court to stop the department's termination of the grants

and direct the DOJ to provide the grant funding as previously arranged. Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington. The Trump administration is appealing a judge's order to find a Venezuelan man believed to have been deported to El Salvador. Houston Public Media's Sarah Gruno has the story. The case has been kicked up to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just days after a Texas judge made a three-pronged order to locate 24-year-old Windmar Ahelvis Sanguino. The government has

complied with parts of the order like disclosing general deportation arrangements made between the US and El Salvador, but it failed to find Ahelvis Sanguino, who was first flagged in Houston Airport for his tattoos last fall. Instead, it's appealing to what's widely considered the country's most politically conservative circuit court. His attorney, Javier Rivera, says he was shocked by the appeal. I'm Sarah Gruno in Houston. The Supreme Court says the president has broad authority to fire the board members of independent agencies.

The ruling is temporary, but it lifts a lower court order to reinstate officials from two boards. This is NPR. The Chicago man arrested in connection with a double shooting two boards. This is NPR. The Chicago man arrested in connection with the double shooting outside of a Jewish museum in Washington is now charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Elias Rodriguez is accused of gunning down two Israeli embassy aides, a couple reportedly set to get engaged. Federal investigators say that they consider the killings a hate crime.

The Department of Homeland Security has revoked Harvard's ability to enroll international students. In a letter to the university, DHS claims Harvard is hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist policies. Harvard has roughly 68,000 foreign students who make up about 27 percent of its enrollment. Scientists have found a way to sample DNA across an entire country and right out of thin air. Details from NPR's Ari Daniel. A network of stations monitors pollution levels across the UK by drawing ambient air across disks of filter paper. Elizabeth Clare is a biodiversity scientist at York University. Those same systems have been accidentally capturing airborne DNA at the same time.

Little bits of DNA sloughed off into the environment by creatures big and small. When Clare and her colleagues analyzed the filters, they found DNA from heaps of insects, spiders, plants, fungi, birds and mammals. Each filter stored just a morsel of information. But when you have hundreds of them being collected, all those dots coalesce into a picture. The biodiversity of a nation and how it's changing. Ari Daniel, NPR News. U.S. futures are flat and after hours trading.

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