NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-30-2025 1PM EDT

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

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Politics is a lot these days. I'm Sarah McCammon, a co-host of the NPR Politics Podcast, and I'll be the first to tell you what happens in Washington definitely demands some decoding. That's why our show makes politics as easy as possible to wrap your head around. Join us as we make politics make sense on the NPR Politics Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. President Trump welcomes back his close advisor Elon Musk to the White House later this hour. Musk says he is leaving the federal government and PR Stephen Fowler has more on what that means for the entity known as the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk departs Doge after 130 days marked by legal setbacks, clashes with cabinet members,

and little evidence to support claims of savings or government efficiency. He says his scheduled time as a special government employee is up and he's returning his focus to his business empire. Musk's departure won't likely change much. Much of the Doge work, the parts that haven't been reversed or held up in court at least, have always been done by people embedded in agencies as full on federal employees. Stephen Fowler, NPR News, Atlanta. The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to revoke, for now, a Biden-era program that gave migrants from unstable countries temporary legal status in the United States. And Piers Adrian-Fluodito reports the decision means half a million people could now face deportation.

The court's order was brief and unsigned, but its ramifications were clear. The government can, for the time being, move forward with expelling about 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, who benefited from the program known as humanitarian parole. The Biden administration had temporarily allowed them into the U.S. as long as they had a private sponsor.

President Trump tried to revoke their status on his first day in office, but lower courts blocked him. The program's ultimate fate is still being litigated, but for now the justices have said deportations can proceed. Justices Katanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented, citing, quote, the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives of close to half a million people. Adrienne Ploetivo, NPR News.

The United Nations has warned that 100% of the population of the Gaza Strip is at risk of famine. At a news briefing in Geneva, Jens Lerker of the UN humanitarian office, OCHA, accused Israel of blocking all but a trickle of humanitarian aid from entering the Palestinian territory since partially lifting a blockade earlier this month. Jens Lerker, UN Humanitarian Office, UN Secretary General, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United

Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Secretary General of the United jacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations not only in the world today but in recent history.

Lurker is heard on the BBC. After a years long battle for control over her own music, Taylor Swift has announced she is finally in charge of the master recordings of her first six albums. On her official website, the Grammy-winning superstar said today she purchased her material, originally released through Big Machine Records from their most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock Capital.

She did not disclose the amount she paid. You're listening to NPR News. Florida is preparing for the possibility of another busy Atlantic hurricane season, although the powerful storms have hit outside the traditional June to November period. In Palm Beach County this morning, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke at a Home Depot, where people typically pick up items before and after a destructive hurricane hits. 2004, 2005 period, we had a bunch happen. Then we had 10 years where we didn't get one. And then now we've had six majors in seven years, including three hurricanes, two major hurricanes last year

in 2024, and then a third hurricane Debbie. It has been four years since a heat dome over the Pacific Northwest resulted in record-breaking temperatures and more than 150 heat-related deaths in Washington state. NPR's Alejandra Barunda says the daughter of one woman who died is suing the major oil companies claiming wrongful death. Temperatures soared well above 100 for days during the 2021 heat wave. Hundreds of people in the Northwest died. Climate scientists figured out that the record-breaking temperatures would have been nearly impossible without

human-driven climate change. And the primary cause of today's climate change is burning fossil fuels like oil and gas. The new lawsuit accuses companies like ExxonMobil and Shell of misleading the public for years about the risks of burning fossil fuels. The lawsuit says those risks contributed to the woman's death. Previous suits have also targeted oil and gas companies for their role in climate change, but this is the first that links those companies directly to a death. Alejandra Burunda, NPR News. I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News. Hey, it's Sarah Gonzalez. The economy has been in the news a lot lately. It's kind of always in I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News.