NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-03-2025 8AM EDT

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

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Wait, wait, don't tell me. Fresh Air, Up First, NPR News Now, Planet Money, Ted Radio Hour, Thru Line, the NPR Politics Podcast, Code Switch, Embedded, Books We Love, Wildcard, are just some of the podcasts you can enjoy sponsor-free with NPR+. Get all sorts of perks across more than 20 podcasts with the bundle option. Learn more at plus dot NPR dot org. Live from NPR News in Washington on Corva Coleman, President Trump says he is going to impose new tariffs on goods from all over the world. The baseline tariff is 10 percent. Those will go into effect on Saturday. What Trump is calling reciprocal tariffs on certain countries will take effect next Wednesday. NPR's Scott Horsley explains. Trump calls these

reciprocal tariffs saying they're simply designed to match the trade barriers that other countries impose on U.S. exports. But the White House later acknowledged it would be too hard to calculate the actual trade barriers from every other country. So they just picked an arbitrary number they thought would be high enough to chip away at each country's trade surplus with the U.S. And the result is a huge tariff increase, a 24 percent tax on imports from Japan, a 34 percent tax on imports from China, in addition to

the 20 percent tariffs that were already in place. NPR's Scott Horsley reporting, stock markets are plunging. On Wall Street and pre-market trading, Dow futures are down about 1,200 points. Meanwhile, President Trump says he is standing up for skilled workers and for farmers. From member station KCUR, Frank Morris reports some farmers are expressing concern. Many farmers say they've been losing money recently. They're paying much more for things like fertilizer,

seed, and equipment, and they're getting less for the crops they produce. Kansas farmer Vance Emke says President Trump's import taxes will make things worse. Vance Emke, Kansas Farmer, Vance Emke These tariffs are just absolutely bad news. There is no good news about them whatsoever. The price for everything that we buy goes up and the price for everything that we sell goes down. Vance Emke American row crop farmers depend on exports

to make a living. Emke fears that the countries they sell to, like China, Mexico, and Canada, will slap tariffs on U.S. farm exports and drive commodity prices lower. For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris in Kansas City. A barrage of Israeli air and artillery strikes hit Syria overnight. A doctor treating victims tells NPR at least nine people have been killed. Israel says it was targeting Syria's military capabilities and what it calls terrorist infrastructure. But Syria's foreign ministry says civilians are among the casualties. NPR's Lauren Fraher has more from Damascus.

Cell phone videos shared with NPR show fierce battles, gunfire and explosions in southern Syria. Dr. Akhli Hanafi tells NPR a farm night watchman was one of those killed. Israel confirmed its air and ground attack but said its troops were fired upon first. Meanwhile Israeli airstrikes also hit military installations farther north in Homs and Hama and a scientific research building in the capital Damascus. Since Bashar al-Assad's ouster, no attacks on Israel have originated in Syria. And the new government here has said it wants cordial relations.

But Israel has attacked Syria preemptively several hundred times since then. Lauren Freyer, NPR News, Damascus. On Wall Street, in pre-market trading, Dow futures are down nearly 3 percent. Nasdaq down nearly 4 percent. It's NPR. A federal judge will hold a hearing today to learn whether the Trump administration disobeyed his orders to halt deportation flights to El Salvador last month. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg had told the administration not to use a rare wartime power to deport

the migrants. He even told administration officials to turn the planes around if they had to. The Justice Department is resisting releasing information. Agency officials say they do not want to reveal state secrets. Deadly thunderstorms and tornadoes are pushing across much of the central and eastern U.S. this morning. At least three people have died in Missouri and Tennessee. Flash flooding and tornadoes are reported this morning in western Tennessee. A pair of baby eagles nesting in the mountains east of Los Angeles now have

names. People around the world suggested thousands of names for the internet-famous eaglets. From member station KVCR in San Bernardino, Madison Aument has more. The winning names for the eaglets are Sunny for the bigger one and Gizmo for the smaller one. They're both just under a foot tall. Sandy Steers, who operates the livestream, organized the eaglet naming. She narrowed down the list of 50,000 suggestions to 30 and let local elementary school students near the nest in Big Bear select the two winners. I think they're fun and I like that the kids, so many of them voted for the same name. Stiers says the next milestone for Sonny and Gizmo is flight.

That could be as soon as mid-May. For NPR News, I'm Madison Aumann in San Bernardino. Again on Wall Street and pre-market trading, most stock indices are down about 3%. This is NPR. Do you remember when discovering a new artist felt like finding buried treasure? about 3%. This is NPR.