NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-30-2025 11PM EDT

Episode Date: May 31, 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, I'm Dale Willman. President Trump says he'll double the current tariff rate on steel coming into the country. We are going to be imposing a 25% increase.

We're going to bring it from 25% to 50% the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States. The price of steel products have already increased about 16 percent since Trump took office and implemented his first round of tariffs. The new tariffs are expected to take hold on Wednesday and could further increase the price of many goods from cars to housing. Trump later announced aluminum tariffs will also be doubled to 50 percent. An appeals court has refused to freeze a California judge's order that stops the Trump administration

from downsizing the federal workforce. The lower court had questioned whether Trump was acting lawfully. Federal Judge Susan Ilston of San Francisco said the president must get the cooperation of Congress to remake the government workforce. Tens of thousands of federal workers have already been fired or placed on leave or have left through resignation programs offered by the government. The U.S. Supreme Court today handed President Trump a temporary win. It permitted the administration to prematurely end a humanitarian program that had granted two-year legal status to more than a half million people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

NPR's Nina Totenberg reports. Trump announced that he was ending the program on his first day in office this year, but a federal district court blocked the administration from doing that. The administration then went directly to the Supreme Court asking that the district court order be suspended while the litigation plays out in the lower courts. The Supreme Court granted the Trump administration's wish over a fiery dissent from liberal justices Katanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor. As is typical with such emergency orders, the court gave no explanation for its ruling.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington. Just two weeks after a tornado killed 19 people in Kentucky, another deadly, destructive tornado hit the state this morning. One person was killed and several others were injured. For Member Station WEKU, John McGarry has more. The National Weather Service in Louisville says the twister had maximum winds of at least 115 miles per hour. Washington County Judge Executive Timothy Graves says the area the tornado struck is

rural and very lightly populated. That's why there's no siren out there. And we had two homes that were just completely destroyed, I mean blown away. And there's other buildings and houses that they have damage, but not the severity of the two that were hit, I guess dead center, if you will. Graveside's first responders from several area counties came to help. Two weeks ago, another tornado killed 19 people in Laurel and Pulaski counties. For NPR News, I'm John McGarry.

And you're listening to NPR News. New research finds removing fluoride from US drinking water could lead to more than 5 million additional cavities a year in kids. MPR's Peng Huang reports on a study that looks into the costs of those cavities. Fluoride has been added to most public water systems for many years to help prevent cavities. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has urged states to stop the practice. A new paper published in JAMA Health Forum projects that banning community water fluoridation could lead to 25 million more cavities in kids over five years.

That would cost at least $9.8 billion in dental care. Dr. Lisa Simon with Harvard Medical School co-authored the paper. She says that's a conservative estimate. What it doesn't factor in is the cost of having your very young child go under general anesthesia in an operating room. The work that families miss to take their child to the dentist or to the emergency room. Most people in the U.S. get fluoride in their drinking water. The decision of whether or not to do it is made by state and local governments. Ping Huang and BR News. Taylor Swift has regained control over her entire body of

work. She posted a note to her website on Friday that says all the music she's ever made now belongs to her. She purchased a catalog of her earlier recordings from the private equity firm Shamrock Capital. Swift did not say how much she paid for her music. Nick Taylor has taken a share of the lead at the Muirfield Golf Tournament underway in Dublin, Ohio this weekend. He was bogey free despite rainy weather and finished the day with a 68 and a tie with Ben Griffin. Griffin shot a 72. Defending champion Scottie Scheffler meanwhile shot a 70, leaving him three strokes off the

pace. Jordan Spieth is in fourth, four strokes back. I'm Dale Willman, NPR News. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things and other currencies. I'm Dale Willman, NPR News.