NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-30-2025 8AM 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 on Korova Coleman, President Trump will meet with a few hand-picked reporters

today at the White House. He says he has asked billionaire Elon Musk to join them. It's Musk's last day as a special federal government employee. He has been overseeing the cost-cutting entity Doge. NPR's Stephen Fowler says that Musk initially boasted he would use DOJ to slash government spending by an enormous amount of money. Musk had these lofty savings goals of cutting two trillion

dollars from before joining the government to a fraction of that to around 150 billion. Our reporting has found those claims are inaccurate, overstated, and rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of how the federal budget works. Also Doge's other signature efforts, like cutting the workforce, have hit repeated legal snags, driven in part by Musk's public statements that have been used to claim those changes broke the law. NPR's Stephen Fowler reporting.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer says President Trump would be breaking a promise he made to her if he pardons two men who were convicted of conspiring to kidnap her in 2020. For Michigan Public Radio, Rick Plutha has more. The Republican president has said he's considering pardons for the two men who are serving federal prison terms for a plot that included staking out the Democratic governor's vacation home and using incendiary devices to get past security. Governor Whitmer says the president told her just the opposite last month in a White House meeting. He asked me how I'd feel about this, and I said,

I think it would be the wrong decision. I would oppose it. He said, OK, I'll drop it. Whitmer says a pardon would send a dangerous message about the consequences of violence against public servants. She noted that she publicly condemned violence against public officials following an assassination attempt on Trump last year. For NPR News, I'm Rick Pluta.

The National Weather Service has issued air quality alerts for all of Wisconsin and part of northern Minnesota. That's because smoke from wildfires in Canada is drifting south and may plunge farther into the U.S. A new study finds that breathing in wildfire smoke raises the chances of cardiorespiratory problems long after the smoke has cleared. And Piers Alejandro Barronda explains. Wildfires and their smoke used to be mostly a Western U.S. problem.

But in the past few years, that's changed. And now they're a problem for people all over the U.S. Think of the Canadian wildfires in 2023, which stained New York City skies orange. New research published in the journal Epidemiology found that breathing in wildfire smoke contributed to hospitalizations for heart and breathing problems as long as three months after the smoke exposure, especially for hypertension. It's another study in the growing body of research showing that smoke can have long-term health impacts.

In the study, the researchers point out that climate change is making wildfires and their smoke more intense. Alhajan Jaburunda, NPR News. On Wall Street in pre-market trading, Dow futures are lower. This is NPR. The aid situation remains dire in Gaza. A U.S.-Israeli-backed effort to provide some limited aid to Palestinians in southern Gaza is mired in chaos. Yesterday, the U.S.-backed group handing out aid only opened one site to offer limited

amounts of food. This effort is coming as Israel continues to bomb sites in Gaza. No aid is being sent to northern Gaza. In the U.S. for the second year in a row it'll be the Edmonton Oilers against the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup final. Last night in Dallas the Oilers beat the Stars 6-3 to win the Western Conference and advance to the NHL's championship series. And Biers Becky Sullivan has more. Both Edmonton and Florida won their conference final series four games to one, the Oilers

over the Stars and the Panthers over the Carolina Hurricanes. Edmonton would be the first Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup in more than 30 years, and they have perhaps the best player on ice these days, Connor McDavid, who leads all NHL players in postseason points this year. But McDavid wasn't enough for the Oilers last year in the Stanley Cup final. Florida went up in that series three games to zero, then the Oilers seemed to be on route to a historic comeback, for they won three straight to force a game seven. But the Panthers and their stars, Sasha Barkov and Matthew Kachuk held them off, and will

look to do it again starting next week. Becky Sullivan, NPR News. In the NBA playoffs, the Oklahoma City Thunder are still waiting to see who they'll face in the finals. The Indiana Pacers could not close out the Eastern Conference final series last night, falling to the New York Knicks 111-94. Indiana still leads the best of seven series, three games to two. This is NPR.

Fall in love with new music every Friday at All Songs Considered. series Three Games to Two. This is NPR.