NPR News Now - NPR News: 06-06-2025 7AM EDT

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

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Decades ago, Brazilian women made a discovery. They could have an abortion without a doctor, thanks to a tiny pill. That pill spawned a global movement, helping millions of women have safe abortions, regardless of the law. Hear that story on the network from NPR's Embedded and Futuro Media, wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Cora Vakulman, media wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korova Coleman.

President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk have had a spectacular falling out. It went public yesterday as Musk increased his criticism of the multi-trillion dollar spending and tax cut bill that is being reviewed by the Senate. Musk wants lawmakers to reject it, saying it will supersize the deficit. Trump criticized Musk and suggested he could pull U.S. contracts with Musk's private company, SpaceX. NPR's Danielle Kurtz-Layman says the breakup between two of the world's most powerful men came after Musk concluded his work overseeing Trump's cost-cutting entity, Doge. Trump brought in this businessman, gave him sweeping power, but it wasn't a one-way street. Musk spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars helping Trump get elected.

So yesterday, Musk made it clear he thought he deserved more in return. He posted, without me, Trump would have lost the election. And he added, quote, such ingratitude. Musk all but said that, yeah, my money should buy me power. And Paris Danielle Kurtz-Lehman prepared that report. Republicans say health care cuts in the president's big, beautiful spending bill would only affect healthy, working-age adults. But Alex Olgan reports low-income seniors also stand to lose some health care coverage. Medicaid, the Joint Federal and State Health insurance program, helps 12 million low-income

seniors like 79-year-old Aline Shaheed afford health care. The Jacksonville, Florida resident is in a wheelchair and relies on Medicaid to help pay for her monthly Medicare premiums, doctor's visits, drugs and home health aids. Everything revolves around having the home health aid. She is the lifeline to my independence. The Congressional Budget Office projects changes to the application and renewal process could cause a tenth of these people to lose Medicaid. Shahid says if that happens, she'll probably be forced to move into a nursing home.

For NPR News, I'm Alex Olgan. A federal judge says that the service agency AmeriiCorps, must restore its programs in 24 states. These were gutted by the Trump administration. But as NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports, the decision is only a partial victory for the service agency. The judge agreed with two dozen Democratic-led states that AmeriCorps did not follow proper procedure in dismantling its programs. The

agency ended grants and abruptly fired tens of thousands of mostly young service members who work in schools, national parks, and communities hit by disaster. Programs in the states that sued could now be restarted. But the judge declined to block the firing of about 85 percent of AmeriCorps staff. She said it was too speculative to argue that the agency could not function without those jobs. And she said states made an unfounded assumption that those employees could return smoothly to the jobs they held before. Jennifer Lutton, NPR News, Washington. On Wall Street and pre-market trading, Dow futures are up 120 points. It's NPR. The

Trump administration has brought a Guatemalan migrant back to the U.S. He had illegally entered the country last year, but a U.S. immigration judge determined he should stay in the U.S. because he would face harm if he were sent back. The Trump administration still deported the migrant to Mexico, and Mexico then sent him back to Guatemala. A federal judge then told the Trump administration the migrant should be returned to the U.S. and that he should not have been deported

to any other country without more legal steps. Archaeologists have discovered what is likely the largest intact remains of an ancient agricultural site. As NPR's Nell Greenfield-Bois reports, it's in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Researchers used a drone to survey over 300 acres near the Menominee River. The drone was equipped with a laser that could map the shape of the ground. Madeline McLeaster is an archaeologist with Dartmouth College. She says the drone detected row upon row of raised

gardening beds. I mean, I didn't expect them just to keep calling and calling and calling. This surprisingly large agricultural system was built by the ancestors of the Menominee Indian tribe of Wisconsin. In the journal Science, the researchers say the discovery suggests that large-scale agriculture may have been common in the region before Europeans moved in. Nell Greenfield-Boce, NPR News. The Japanese commercial company, iSpace, has failed again

as it tried to land a tiny probe on the moon. This is the second company lander to fail. Managers suspect the probe had a hard landing on the lunar surface. This is NPR. Do you ever look at political headlines and go, huh? landing on the lunar surface. This is NPR.