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Episode Date: February 4, 2025

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We Came to the Forest, a new investigative podcast, exposes the hidden truths behind a nighttime shootout in Atlanta that left one activist dead and countless lives forever changed. Binge all episodes of We Came to the Forest ad-free on Wondery Plus. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has cleared a major hurdle on his way to becoming secretary of health and human services. NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin reports Kennedy's nomination now moves to the full U.S. Senate. A scion of the famous Democratic family, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent years as an environmental attorney before pivoting to anti-vaccine

activism, which built his reputation and fortune. The outcome of Tuesday's vote in the Finance Committee was uncertain. Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana who's a physician, said he was struggling with the decision because of how it could affect vaccination, but in the end, all Republicans voted in favor of confirmation and all Democrats opposed it. If confirmed, Kennedy will oversee all the health agencies, which includes Medicare, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and more. Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR News, Washington. China's hitting back at the Trump administration for tariffs, which took effect at midnight. NPR's John Rewich reports the Chinese government did a lot

more than just tit-for-tat this time. When President Trump began imposing tariffs on China during his first term, Beijing responded for the most part proportionally and in kind with tariffs on U.S. goods. This time, Beijing has announced retaliatory tariffs of 15 percent on coal and liquefied natural gas from the United States and 10 percent on oil, farm equipment and several types of vehicles. China's market regulator said it's launching an antitrust investigation into Google. The Commerce Ministry and Customs Administration added two U.S. companies to a quote, unreliable

entities list. And the government put export controls on several rare minerals, key to tech manufacturing. Analysts say China's steps are measured, but show its willingness to take a broader approach to push back against the Trump administration. John Ruhich, NPR News, Beijing. Trump hit the pause on tariffs against the US's American neighbors staving off a regional trade war. The administration has agreed to a 30-day delay after Canada and Mexico pledged to increase border security enforcement. State Farm is seeking an emergency rate hike in

California in the wake of the destructive fires across the Los Angeles area. Kevin Stark of member station KQED reports the insurance company says it has already paid out more than a billion dollars on thousands of claims. State Farm says the rate hike is needed to avert a dire situation. They've asked to raise the average California homeowner's policy by more than 20 percent starting in May. Stanford's Michael Wara. State farms isn't very healthy financially because it has been really trying to stay in the California market and even grow in the California market as opposed to doing what most of the other companies have done, which is to shrink.

State regulators say they're setting hearings to consider their request. For NPR News, I'm Kevin Stark in San Francisco. JL The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 83 points at 44,505. The S&P and NASDAQ are also up. You're listening to NPR News. 15.4 million. That's how many viewers the Grammy Awards ceremony on CBS drew Sunday night. According to the Nielielsen ratings there were about a million more viewers last year However, the numbers only account for CBS viewers The event was also streamed on the subscription base Paramount Plus with Showtime package Also marketing around the Los Angeles show was affected because of the LA fires and fire recovery and resilience was

a prominent theme in the 67th Grammy Awards. On the moon there are two canyons similar in size to Arizona's Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon took millions of years to create but as NPR's Nell Greenfield-Boys explains, the ones on the moon took only minutes. David Kring is with the Lunar and Planetary Institute of the University's Space Research Association. He and some colleagues just used images from a lunar orbiter to study two large canyons that radiate out from a big impact crater. The crater was made when an asteroid or comet hit the moon. This threw up a curtain of debris. Clusters of rock in that curtain hit the lunar surface in just a staccato series of impacts. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

This excavated a series of smaller craters that line up to form long, deep canyons. In the journal Nature Communications, the researchers say making these canyons took about 10 minutes. Nell Greenfield-Boice, NPR News. The Nasdaq is up nearly 1 percent and the S&P has risen nearly half a percent. This is NPR News.

Our long national nightmare is over. Beyoncé has finally won the Grammy for Album of the Year. How and why did it take so long for Beyoncé to win the top prize at Music's Biggest Night? We're talking about her big wins and breaking down the Grammys for Kendrick Lamar, Chappell Roan, and Sabrina Carpenter. Listen to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR.