NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-03-2025 9AM 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.npr.org. Live from NPR News in Washington, on Korova Coleman, President Trump's sweeping tariffs are hitting the share price of many U.S. retailers and tech companies in pre-market trading. Dow futures are down 3%. The minimum tariffs are 10%. NPR's Alina Seljuk reports

heavy new tariffs on China appear to have taken investors by surprise. Companies including Walmart, Target, Amazon, and Nike are poised to lead a drop in US stock markets today. These companies depend quite a bit on imports from China, for which the new 34% tariff will stack on top of the existing 20% tariffs, term had imposed, for a total of 54% in tax. US importers are on the hook to pay these new fees to receive the imports in the U.S. Many retailers have been diversifying their supply chains beyond China, but the new tariffs affect virtually every country in the world with new levies on Vietnam, India, Cambodia, among others. Some retail giants such as Walmart are pressing their

suppliers to shoulder some of the new costs. But generally, retailers warn they may have to raise consumer prices as a result. Alina Seluk, NPR News. Powerful storms are thundering across the central U.S. and parts of the Midwest. The National Weather Service is warning this is a significant weather event that is catastrophic and life-threatening. Meteorologist Mark Schenard says there have been a lot of reported tornadoes. Preliminarily, there's been several reports of tornadoes across portions, like I said,

Missouri, Western Tennessee, Kentucky. Some of the damage does look to be significant. Authorities say the storms have left three people dead in Missouri and Tennessee. Another tornado warning has been posted for central West Virginia. Flash flood warnings are up this morning in much of Tennessee. The National Weather Service says exceptionally heavy rain is falling in several states, and by the weekend, up to five or ten more inches of rain are predicted. A senior Russian economic envoy is in Washington for talks with White House officials.

The meetings come as President Trump has expressed growing frustration with the Kremlin over the pace of U.S.-backed negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. From Moscow, NPR's Charles Maines has more. Kareel Dmitriev is the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund. He's also merged as President Vladimir Putin's choice for special envoy for economic cooperation amid recent U.S.-Russian negotiations. Harvard educated and formerly under U.S. sanctions, Dmitriyev is expected to meet with White House envoy Steve Witkoff. The Russian envoy has been an advocate for the return of dialogue between Moscow and

Washington under the Trump administration and suggested the two sides could cooperate on everything from mineral extraction to Arctic development and space exploration. Dmitriyev's visit to Washington comes as Trump has said he's mulling massive tariffs on Russian oil exports if the U.S. ultimately decides Russia is dragging its feet on negotiations over Ukraine. Charles Mainz, NPR News, Moscow. On Wall Street, Dow futures are down 3 percent, Nasdaq futures are down 4 percent. It's NPR.

The outplacement job firm Challenger Grain Christmas released its report on job cuts in March. It found more than 275,000 job losses last month. That was driven by Doge layoffs in the federal government. A lawsuit filed by the ACLU says the National Institutes of Health must restore more than a billion dollars in grants. The organizationU says the National Institutes of Health must restore more than a billion dollars in grants. The organization is demanding the Trump administration stop its, quote, ideological purge of federally funded research. From member station WBUR, Martha Biebinger has more.

The ACLU claims the NIH's canceling of research because it mentions gender identity, diversity, vaccine hesitancy, and COVID is unconstitutional and unlawful. Harvard associate professor Brittany Charlton has lost $5.9 million in contracts because they did not fit Trump administration priorities. It actually doesn't matter from my understanding what the future priorities are because our current contracts are contracts and the way in which they are terminating them is very outside the norm. There's no response yet from the Trump administration.

The suit includes other individual scientists, a union representing university employees, and the American Public Health Association. For NPR News, I'm Martha Biebinger in Boston. NPR has learned that tech giant Amazon is bidding to acquire video sharing app TikTok. Saturday is the deadline for the app to be sold away from its Chinese parent. But NPR has learned that a different coalition of U.S. firms may win the bid to buy TikTok. That coalition could include Oracle. This is NPR. A couple months ago, here at Planet Money, we stumbled across our favorite kind of economic mystery.

Jack, what is this? A deal that seemed way too good to be true. What I'm seeing here, at least, is that it's very high clarity. Join us on our adventure. Talk to me. Show me what you got. To find out exactly how much a diamond is worth. Planet Money from NPR. Wherever you get your podcasts.