NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-01-2025 12AM EDT

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

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This message comes from Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right. They offer premium wireless plans for less and all plans include high-speed data, unlimited talk and text, and nationwide coverage. See for yourself at mintmobile.com slash switch. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Shae Stevens. President Trump's 25 percent tariffs on all imported cars and auto parts take effect this week and he says even more levies will soon be announced. Trump says he'll unveil his latest tariff plan on Wednesday. I think what you're going to be seeing over the next couple of days will be very inspiring

to a lot of people. You know, they had a lot of auto plants being built in a certain country. I don't want to mention the country because we get along great with the country, but those plants aren't being built there anymore. They gave them up today and yesterday, day before, and they're building them all now in the United States. And we have many examples, not only auto plants. Chip companies from Taiwan are coming in, the biggest.

Trump says his plan will return tremendous wealth to the United States. Some Republican lawmakers are expressing concern that the new tariffs will lead to a trade war that would ultimately hurt American consumers. A labor union has filed suit seeking to block President Trump's executive order, stripping collective bargaining rights from a wide swath of the federal workforce.

As NPR's Andrea Hsu reports, the union argues that the order is unlawful. The National Treasury Employees Union represents more than 100,000 federal workers covered by Trump's executive order, including at the Department of Health and Human Services, the EPA, and the IRS. The White House says those agencies and others have national security as part of their missions and therefore are excluded from a statute granting employees collective bargaining rights. The union says none of the agencies where it represents workers has intelligence or national security as a primary function and that union representation at those agencies has never harmed national security.

Instead, the union says Trump's executive order is retaliation for its legal challenges to the administration's mass firings and other actions. Andrea Hsu, NPR News. Two astronauts are quickly readjusting to Earth's gravity after a long unplanned stint in space. More from NPR's Nell Greenfield-Boyce. Sunny Williams and Butch Wilmore went up on a test flight of Boeing's new Starliner. Their trip was supposed to last about eight days. Instead, they spent over eight months in orbit on the International Space Station because

NASA had concerns about glitches and wanted them to return in a SpaceX capsule. Sunny Williams says all the attention was humbling and surprising as she heard from friends and family. That people were interested and wondering what's going on and Concerned about our health and all that kind of stuff while we're up there. They arrived home about two weeks ago She says initially she felt wobbly on her feet, but now she feels so good She just went on a three mile run Nell Greenfield voice NPR news A SpaceX rocket has launched the Dragon crew capsule carrying four private astronauts on

an orbit at the North and South Poles. The FRAM-2 mission, as it's called, is expected to last three to five days. This is NPR. A federal judge has paused the Trump administration's plans to end temporary legal status, or TPS, for Venezuelan migrants. The order pertains to 350,000 migrants whose protection from deportation was set to expire next week. U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen gave the administration one week to appeal.

Chen also said the plaintiffs who brought the case have a week to file a motion on behalf of 500,000 Haitians whose TPS status will expire in August. Three U.S. soldiers have been found dead nearly one week after their armored truck became stuck in a muddy bog in Lithuania. The troops were reported missing after they failed to return from a tactical training mission. Another soldier was still unaccounted for as of Tuesday. A new blood test may help determine whether a person has cognitive problems related to Alzheimer's. NPR's John Hamilton reports. Existing blood tests can reveal the sticky amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer's,

but they don't indicate problems with thinking and memory. Dr. Randall Bateman of Washington University in St. Louis says the new test is different. It was much more related to memory loss, symptom onset, dementia, stage, all the things that patients care about. The experimental test measures part of a protein called tau that forms tangles inside neurons. A study found that levels of this protein rise when the symptoms of Alzheimer's begin to appear. Bateman says eventually doctors should be able to use the when the symptoms of Alzheimer's begin to appear. Bateman says eventually doctors should be able to use the test to help diagnose Alzheimer's and select

patients who will benefit from drug treatment. John Hamilton, NPR News. This is NPR. This message comes from Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right. They offer premium wireless plans for less, and all plans include high-speed data, unlimited talk and text, and nationwide coverage. See for yourself at mintmobile.com switch.