NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-04-2025 10PM EDT

Episode Date: April 5, 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. Stocks in the US were in a freefall for a second day today as President Trump continues to push his global tariffs. The Dow fell more than 2,000 points for just the fourth time in history.

The Nasdaq and the S&P suffered even larger percentage losses today. MPR's Maria Aspin says investors and average Americans alike have seen trillions of dollars in wealth evaporate over the past few days. About 60 percent of U.S. households own stocks, according to the Federal Reserve. And the market is where people usually have their retirement savings invested through 401Ks or other retirement plans. Trump has shrugged off the market's decline, saying he'll stick with his tariff plan. Looking at the numbers, the Dow fell 2,231 points today, a drop of five and a half percent. The NASDAQ and the S&P both fell nearly six percent. President Trump has given TikTok another lifeline,

as NPR's Bobby Allen explains. The president granted the video app an extension to break away from its China-based owner after negotiations faltered. White House negotiators were all set to make a big announcement about TikTok. They planned to say a new entity would be formed called TikTok America, and that TikTok's algorithm would be licensed from Beijing owner ByteDance.

Additional security measures would be in place to protect Americans' data. But then China backed out. According to a person directly involved in the talks, Beijing pulled its support of the agreement in response to Trump's 34 percent tariffs on China. The hope, according to the source, is to extract some tariff relief from Washington. In a rare statement, ByteDance said there are key matters that need to be resolved and that any deal requires approval from the Chinese government. Bobby Allen, NPR News. U.S. officials and lawmakers are confirming President Trump has fired the head of the

National Security Agency, neither the White House nor the Pentagon, providing any reason for the firing. Air Force General Tim Hawk, who oversaw the Pentagon's cyber command, officials say they received no advance notice of the decision to fire the four-star general, who spent 33 years in intelligence and cyber operations. It's not clear who's in charge of NSA. Many American shopkeepers are getting ready to order their supplies for the holiday shopping season. They're trying to calculate how much the shipments will actually cost given sweeping new tariffs on imports. More from NPR's Lena Seljuk. Tariffs get paid by American importers and often at small business owners like Alfred Mai in San Francisco. He sells card games for families and parties at his company ASM Games and right now

he's trying to figure out how much to stock up for the all-important holiday season. I'm faced with the decision of having to spend all this cash, a lot of cash. Or save a lot of it to pay for tariffs when his cards arrive from China. Mai says during the pandemic and the supply chain crisis that followed, he was able to keep prices steady, cutting into his own profit margin. But now we don't really have any more margins to give. And so for the very first time, we might have to raise prices. And I hate the idea of that.

But that's the reality for many companies like his. This is NPR. Just in time for tax day, the Internal Revenue Service has begun making sweeping cuts to its workforce. That's according to an agency-wide email viewed by NPR, which says the cuts will roll out over the next 30 to 90 days. The IRS had already cut some probationary workers. The Washington Post is reporting that more than 20,000 employees will be cut, roughly 20 to 25 percent of the agency's workforce. A prominent Roman Catholic cardinal who was defrocked due to sexual abuses died at the

age of 94. MPR's Jason DeRose reports Theodore McCarrick had been the Archbishop of Washington, DC. In 2019, Pope Francis defrocked Theodore McCarrick after an internal church investigation found he had sexually molested multiple victims over many years. Later, the Vatican issued a report saying that Pope John Paul II promoted him despite knowledge of sexual abuse allegations. In 2023, a Massachusetts court found McCarrick not competent to stand trial for sexual abuse of a 16-year-old boy there due to a dementia diagnosis. The former Archbishop had pleaded not guilty prior to the judge dismissing the case. McCarrick had one of the highest ranking positions in the Roman Catholic Church and is the only U.S. Cardinal ever to face sex abuse charges.

Jason DeRose, NPR News. While highly preventable and virtually eradicated in the U.S. 25 years ago, Measles has made a comeback this year. The U.S. reporting twice the number of cases of the disease compared to a year ago, with two reports of fatalities involving unvaccinated people. Highly contagious disease is airborne and is preventable via vaccine. I'm Jack Spear, NPR 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

switch.