NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-28-2025 9PM EDT

Episode Date: May 29, 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 as 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. Listen to the Consider This Podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. A federal court has blocked President Trump's worldwide tariffs. NPR's Scott Horsley reports the U.S. Court of International Trade says the president

overstepped his authority in taxing imports from nearly every other country. In a unanimous ruling, the three-judge panel said the Constitution gives Congress the exclusive power to regulate trade and impose tariffs. The court says the 1977 emergency law Trump relied on in ordering tariffs does not give the President unbounded power to tax imports from nearly every other country. If that ruling stands, it would strike down all the tariffs that Trump ordered on April 2nd, as well as separate taxes on imports from China, Canada, and Mexico, some of which have been temporarily suspended. The tariffs were challenged by a dozen states and five businesses.

The three judges who ruled against the president were appointed by Presidents Reagan, Obama, and Trump himself. Scott Horsley, MPR News, Washington. President Trump is out with a plethora of pardons today. According to White House officials, Trump has pardoned former Republican Representative Michael Grim, who served seven months in prison for tax fraud a decade ago, along with rapper Kentrell Galden, who was sentenced to two years ago in a federal gun case. He commuted the sentence of Chicago gang member Larry Hoover, who was serving multiple life terms for crimes including murder. Trump also apparently pardoning former Connecticut Governor

John Roland, who left office amid a federal corruption investigation and later pleaded guilty to tax fraud. The Department of Health and Human Services has canceled the federal government's only contract to develop a vaccine to protect people against bird flu virus that experts fear could cause a pandemic. Here's NPR's Rob Stein. Federal officials are canceling a contract with Moderna

to develop an mRNA vaccine to protect people against flu strains that could cause pandemics. That includes the H5N1 bird flu virus that's been spreading among dairy cows in the U.S. The cancellation comes even though the company says a study involving 300 healthy adults has produced positive results. An HHS spokesman says the contract was cancelled because of concerns about the safety of mRNA

vaccines. Rob Stein, and pure news. With its war against Russia's invasion of Ukraine dragging on, Germany now appears ready to step in and fill some of the void left by a lack of Western assistance. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz promising to help Ukraine develop its own long-range missile systems would be free of Western imposed limitations. President Trump today meanwhile downplayed the possibility of new sanctions against Russia, saying he expects to know in a week or two whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is committed to ending the war against Ukraine.

Stocks added to their losses late in the session. The Dow was down 244 points to 42,098. The NASDAQ fell 98 points. The S&P dropped 32 points. This is NPR. Singer Smokey Robinson has filed a counters suit against the former employees who accused him of sexual assault earlier this month. As NPR's Nettie Ulubi reports, Robinson claims the women are guilty of defaming him. In the suit filed in California Superior Court, Smokey Robinson and his wife Frances say the four women are extorting them.

Robinson became known for a string of Motown hits in the 1960s. The women worked as housekeepers for the couple. They accused Robinson of multiple instances of rape in a civil lawsuit. The Robinson's countersuit claims the accusers demanded $100 million before taking legal action and seeks damages of $500 million. The Robinson's lawyers also argue in a separate filing that the women who filed anonymously as Jane Doe's lacked a legal standing to hide their identities.

A criminal investigation into the women's claims is ongoing. Neda Ulibi, NPR News. Astronomers are still puzzling over the discovery of a new object in our Milky Way, they say is emitting X-rays around the same time. It's also shooting out radio waves. Located some 15,000 light-years away, scientists say they're not sure if the object is a star, a pair of stars or something else entirely. Now, Soshonda X-ray Observatory spotted the emission by chance last year while focusing on the remains of an exploded star.

They say the hyperactive phase of the object lasted for about a month. The findings were published in the journal Nature. Critical futures prices moved higher today, oil up 95 cents a barrel to 61.84 a barrel in New York. Speier, NPR News in Washington.