NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-27-2025 10AM EDT

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

NPR News: 05-27-2025 10AM EDTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Conductor Robert Franz says a good melody captures our attention. And then it moves you through time. Music is architecture in time. If you engage in the moment with what you're listening to, you do lose a sense of the time around you. How we experience time. That's on the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. President Trump has said he wants to reallocate billions of dollars in federal funding away from Harvard University and send it to trade schools across the U.S. The Trump administration is seeking to strip Harvard of other funding, including significant

financing of critical health care research. Harvard University President Alan Garber says federal funding is an investment used on behalf of humankind. He says taking it away from research universities means that critical work will not be done at all. Why cut off research funding? Sure, it hurts Harvard, but it hurts the country because after all, the research funding is not a gift the research funding is given to universities and other research institutions

to carry out Work that the federal government designates is high priority work. It is work that they want done He spoke to NPR's morning edition the Trump administration's cost-cutting team, DOJ, is trying to eliminate some of the surveys conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. As NPR's Hansi Loong reports, the effort is raising concerns from government data watchers. For this push to end some U.S. government surveys, the DOJ team created its own called the, quote, 2025 survey of surveys. NPR obtained a copy from a federal agency official who was not authorized to share it with the press.

One of its questions is quote, what are the implications if this survey were discontinued tomorrow? Some government data watchers are pointing out Doge may be duplicating the oversight work of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, which is required by law to review all federal surveys. And a social media post on XDoge said its review has terminated five surveys but did not name them. It did criticize questions about people's internet usage and alcohol consumption. Both topics have long been tracked by some of the surveys the Census Bureau conducts to produce statistics to help guide policymaking and research.

Anzila Wong, NPR News, Washington. Stocks opened higher this morning after President Trump postponed his threat to add steep new tariffs on imported goods coming from Europe. NPR's Scott Horsley reports the Dow Jones industrial average jumped about 400 points in early trading. President Trump has decided to wait at least another month before imposing a 50% import tax on EU goods. Trump said Friday that tax would take effect on June 1st. But after speaking with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen over the weekend, Trump agreed to wait until at least July 9th. In the meantime, negotiators from the US and the EU will try

to work out a trade deal. This continues a pattern in which the President threatens enormous import taxes, then backtracks. The tariffs that remain, however, are still the highest in nearly a century. New orders for long-lasting manufactured goods fell last month for the first time in five months. That's mostly because of a steep drop in orders for commercial aircraft. Scott Horsley, MPR News, Washington. On Wall Street, the Dow is up about 400 points, or about 1 percent. The Nasdaq is up nearly 2 percent.

You're listening to NPR. NPR and three Colorado public radio stations are suing the Trump administration. It's over President Trump's executive order recently, purportedly barring the use of congressionally appropriated funds for NPR and PBS. The White House has not had an immediate comment in reaction to the suit.

Los Angeles County will start testing soils for toxins on property lots that were burned in the Eaton fire. NPR's Kirk Siegler reports the moves in response to concerns by scientists. Federal agencies are trying to fast-track recovery and rebuilding. County health officials will collect soil samples from about 26,000 homes in and around Altadena. FEMA has been removing debris and clearing home sites for rebuilding but not testing for lingering toxins in soils. Andrew Welton of Purdue University says this is a troubling departure in what's

been standard protocol after other recent fires on Maui and in Paradise, California. It's unclear to me why this is different but it clearly is and this is a problem towards a safe and rapid rebuilding. The new LA County testing program is so far only planned in the Eaton fire and not the similarly destructive Palisades fire on the city's west side. Kirk Sigler in PR News, Los Angeles. The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a group representing Apache tribal members and environmentalists

in Arizona. They're seeking to block a large copper mining project on federal land. The justice's ruling allows the transfer of the federal land to a group that plans to mine it. The opponents say this will destroy land that is sacred to Apaches. This is NPR News.