NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-31-2025 5PM EDT

Episode Date: May 31, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janene Hurst. The European Union says it's prepared to impose counter-tariff plans now that President Trump doubled his tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to 50 percent. An EU spokesperson says they had paused their tariffs in hopes of reaching an agreement. Terry Schultz has more. A spokesperson for the European Union's executive says the bloc strongly regrets Trump's decision to raise tariffs on steel imports from 25 to 50 percent. The decision adds further uncertainty to the global economy and increases costs for consumers

and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic, the spokesperson said in a statement. They added that this move also undermines ongoing efforts to reach a negotiated solution, which was the reason the EU decided in April to hold off imposing its own tariffs. But now the spokesperson says the European Commission is finalizing its decisions on countermeasures and will put them into effect on July 14th or even earlier if, in their words, no mutually acceptable solution is reached. For NPR News, I'm Terri Schultz in Brussels. Terri Schultz Elon Musk stepped down from the federal

government yesterday and some people, including Republicans, aren't sad to see him go. NPR's Maria Aspin spoke with Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota. Maria Aspin Musk is leaving the Department of Government efficiency, which is spearheading President Trump's efforts to shrink the federal bureaucracy. But many of Doge's indiscriminate cuts have likely made the government less efficient. Senator Rounds tells NPR that if Musk and Doge really wanted to be effective, they needed to be more careful with their cuts and spend more time digging into what he calls the finer details.

I think the president wanted him to come in with a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. And in some cases, Doge came in with a sledgehammer. Trump, meanwhile, wrote on his Truth Social Network that Musk, quote, will always be with us helping all the way. Elon is terrific. Maria Aspin, NPR News, Simi Valley, California. The United Nations says Israel banned aid to Gaza from Jordan and Egypt. The move leaves hundreds of millions of dollars of food and medicine intended for Gaza stuck

in warehouses and on trucks. And here's Jane Araf, has more from Amman. This UN warehouse on the edge of Amman is piled high with boxes of food, hygiene kits and medical supplies. $24 million worth. It's been here for months. And now... We're looking at boxes of food here which have been sitting here, you know, in some cases since January. That's Jonathan Fowler with the UN's Palestinian Refugee Agency. Among the food is 200,000 tons of flour at risk of being thrown out Israel has started a new mechanism to get food into Gaza, but it can only come from Israel says the UN and Gaza

The Israeli military declined to comment on the change Jane Araf NPR news Aman, you're listening to NPR news NPR News, Amman. You're listening to NPR News. Pharmaceutical company Moderna says the Food and Drug Administration has approved its new COVID booster vaccine, although the agency did put restrictions on who can get it. This new booster is a lower dose version that's a step toward next generation coronavirus vaccines. Moderna says it expects to offer both the new vaccine and its existing COVID-19 shot this fall. The FDA approved the new vaccine for adults 65 and older and also for people age 12 to 64

who are at higher risk from the coronavirus. That's the same limit that the FDA said in licensing another vaccine option from Novavax. When people get a scratch or an infection, the body responds better if it happens during the day. NPR's Burleigh McCoy reports on how the immune system tells time. Scientists have known that many cells in the immune system have built-in circadian clocks, genes that tell them to respond differently depending on the time. But scientists weren't quite sure how the immune system was telling time.

To figure it out, researchers used baby zebrafish, which are transparent, with modified immune cells that give off fluorescent light. The team exposed the fish to fluorescent bacteria and watched how the immune cells responded when it was light or dark. During the day, the immune cells killed bacteria faster, but when researchers cut out certain circadian clock genes from the immune cells, they lost that ability. This knowledge could allow scientists to rally immune cells

to respond to a bad infection. They published their findings in the journal Science Immunology. Burleigh McCoy, NPR News. This is NPR News.