NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-29-2025 8PM EDT

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

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This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now, with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what. To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. A federal appeals court has temporarily restored

President Trump's ability to impose sweeping new tariffs. MPR's Franco Ordonier reports it puts on hold till next week, last night's ruling, that Trump was exceeding his authority. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has granted the Trump administration's request to temporarily pause the New York-based Court of International Trade ruling that struck down many of Trump's tariffs. The court offered no reasoning for the decision but paused the

original ruling while the legal proceedings play out. This latest development is likely only to increase uncertainty about Trump's trade agenda. White House press secretary Caroline Levitt defended the administration. Ultimately, the Supreme Court must put an end to this for the sake of our Constitution and our country. She said the U.S. cannot function if the president is hindered by, in her words, activist judges. Franco Ordonez and PR News, the White House. The Trump administration, through new health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has announced a number of big changes to vaccine policy in recent days.

That includes imposing new requirements on COVID vaccines and no longer recommending booster shots for pregnant women and young healthy children. The department also canceled a $766 million contract to develop an mRNA vaccine against the bird flu. MPR's Rob Stein says can buy moves are generating concerns. These are just the latest steps that Kennedy has taken that affect vaccines, especially the mRNA vaccines. So many public health experts worry that this is part

of an overall strategy to just undermine public confidence and the use of the vaccines. They point to the measles outbreak that's currently underway and upticks in other childhood diseases like whooping cough as evidence of the impact we're already seeing. NPR's Rob Stein. National Association of the Deaf is suing the White House. The organization says the use of American Sign Language interpreters abruptly stopped during press briefings when President Trump returned to office. Here's NPR's Kristen White. The federal lawsuit is filed on behalf of two deaf men who watched televised White House press briefings and have trouble understanding closed captioning, which can be unreliable. The suit

says the men and others in the deaf community are missing a litany of vital information on the economy, social security, and DEI among other issues affecting Americans. ASL is the primary language for many deaf people. Joy Bannister contracts ASL interpreters to the federal government. It's really at the detriment to our deaf community. So we want to make sure that they're able still to be a part of the community and have the accesses that they need. In 2020, NAD reached a federal settlement ordering the Trump White House to provide ASL interpreters for coronavirus-related public briefings. Kristen Wright, NPR News, Washington.

On Wall Street, the Dow is up 117 points. This is NPR. A new supercomputer named for a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry won't apparently be switched on till next year, but the computing project at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab is being announced today. Supercomputer dubbed Doudna, named for Berkeley professor and biochemist Jennifer Doudna,

who worked on gene editing will help power new AI and scientific discoveries. A team of researchers thinks the tiny microbes in our home may hold the key to solving some of our biggest problems. More from MPR's Ari Daniel. Microbes are little alchemists that perform all manner of chemical reactions. Microbiologist Brayden Tierney wondered whether he could harness those abilities somehow, so he co-founded the Two Frontiers project to do just that.

We travel to sites all around the world where there is microbial life, we think, living that's going to be useful for things like carbon capture or helping corals or improving agriculture. Now the team is turning their sites to the microbes in your shower heads, drip pans, hot water heaters, a set of extreme environments that may have pressured microorganisms into surviving in ways we could take advantage of. Tierney's team is reaching out to homeowners nationwide to contribute their snots and goos.

R.E. Daniel, NPR News. The man charged with crashing his car through the front gate of the home of actor Jennifer Aniston has been found mentally incompetent to stand trial. Los Angeles County judges showed the ruling today after a second doctor, determined 48-year-old Jimmy Wayne Carwile, was not mentally fit to face charges of felony stalking and vandalism. Carwile has pleaded not guilty in the case. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR News in Washington.