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

Episode Date: April 4, 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 Jack Spear. To find a day this bad on Wall Street, you would have to go back to the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Stocks fell sharply today as investors took stock of the fallout from President Trump's

new tariff policies. NPR's Scott Horsley reports all the major U.S. stock market indexes fell by nearly 4 percent or more. The tariffs that President Trump announced late Wednesday are both higher and broader than investors had expected. Starting this weekend, the U.S. will charge a minimum 10 percent tariff on nearly everything that's imported. Products from many countries will face even higher import taxes beginning next week.

Economists say those tariffs will push prices higher and slow down economic growth. The tariffs essentially a tax on US consumers will be charged even on products the US cannot produce domestically things like coffee and bananas. Looking at the numbers on Wall Street today the Dow dropped more than 1,600 points the Nasdaq fell more than a thousand points the S&P dropped 274 points. One group celebrating the new tariffs from the Trump administration is Gulf Coast Shrimpers. Steven Posahov, the Gulf States Newsroom reports, Shrimpers have long complained cheap imports have harmed their industry.

About 80% of all seafood consumed in the United States is imported. And a big portion of that is foreign shrimp. Shrimp that US fishers say is subsidized, driving down prices and driving them out of business. Bossard's Boats in Pascagoula, Mississippi has been in Leanne Bossard's family for generations. She believes that tariffs will give southern shrimpers an even playing field. It makes us feel like we finally have somebody looking out for the little guy, and we may be able to continue a heritage that we're very proud of and feed our country. India is the largest exporter of shrimp to the United States and now faces a 27 percent

tariff. For NPR News, I'm Stephen Besaha in Birmingham, Alabama. Trump officials could be held in contempt over two flights carrying migrants to El Salvador. In a hearing today, federal judge James Boasberg says a decision will be made next week. In bureaus, Sergio Martinez Beltran has more. At the core of the case is whether the Trump administration ignored Judge Boasberg's orders to turn back the flights carrying more than 100 men, allegedly members of a Venezuelan gang, who were removed under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The Justice Department continues to stonewall over the details, invoking the state's secrets privilege to not provide specifics about the flights. But an attorney for the DOJ says the

administration did not violate the court's orders. Judge Boasberg did not buy it. He said, quote, there is a fair likelihood that that is not correct. In fact, the government acted in bad faith throughout that day. He's expected to decide whether to hold Trump officials in contempt next week. Sergio Martinez Beltran, NPR News. You're listening to NPR News in Washington. An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City has killed at least 27 people, most of them reported to be women and children. NPR's Ayah Batraoui reports Israel's military says the attack

targeted prominent Hamas figures inside the school but did not provide details on their identity. As night fell in Gaza, rescue crews were still working through the rubble to retrieve bodies from this latest attack on the school. NPR producer Anas Baba was at the hospital as the dead and wounded arrived, some in cars, others on donkey carts. Children bloodied and covered in dust were rushed into the ER, some already dead on arrival. Scores of wounded were treated on the floor or outside the overwhelmed hospital. A day earlier, a similar Israeli airstrike targeting Hamas figures struck a UN clinic housing displaced families, killing at least 15 people, nine of them children.

Gaza's health ministry says Israeli attacks across the territory have killed at least 175 Palestinians in the past two days, adding to the overall death toll of more than 50,000 in the war. Eya Botraui, MPR News, Dubai. Wrenchers have been at odds with environmentalist efforts to reintroduce Mexican gray wolves back into the wild since the 1990s, and it now appears in rural New Mexico, pet owners also have reasons for concern. Commissioners in Catron County say pets are being snatched from front yards by the wolves, which also are continuing

to kill livestock. Environmentalists, however, have defended the reintroduction of the wolves in the western U.S. Critical futures prices took their steepest drop in years after OPEC agreed to a surprise increase in output just a day after the announcement of Trump tariffs oiled down more than 6% in New York. I'm Jack Spear in PR News in Washington. 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

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