NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-04-2025 2AM 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 Dan Ronan. The US stock market ended their worst day Thursday in five years as investors reacted to President Trump's latest tariff plan. As NPR's Maria Aspin reports, the Dow closed down nearly 4 percent. Investors, businesses, and consumers are all trying to process the implications of President

Trump's newest sweeping tariff plan for the global economy. All of the major U.S. stock indices plummeted. Major household names, including Nike, Apple, and Amazon, lost billions of dollars in value. Trump has ordered a minimum 10% tax on nearly all imports starting this weekend and much higher tariffs on goods from dozens of countries, including some of the United States' closest allies. Economists warn the new taxes will make consumers pay higher prices and weaken the broader U.S. economy. The investment bank JP Morgan is now warning that the tariffs, if sustained, will push both the U.S. and the world into a recession.

Maria Aspin, NPR News, New York. The Trump administration has reportedly added thousands of immigration cases to the national warrants database used by local police. NPR's Martin Castee reports it could lead to more local officers arresting people on behalf of ICE. Federal authorities have long put some immigration warrants into the NCIC or National Crime Information Center. But the number of immigration warrants has been increased dramatically under President

Trump. That's according to Terry Cunningham with the International Association of Chiefs of Police, whose organization has ties to the FBI division that runs the database. I was able to confirm that there was some number in that range, somewhere in the vicinity between 500,000 and 700,000 potential detainers that had been entered. Detainers are often not signed by judges, and Cunningham says local police risk being sued if they arrest someone based only on an ICE civil warrant on the computer system. Martin Costi, NPR News.

The cuts are not over at the Department of Health and Human Services. On the heels of laying off thousands of staff members this week, the agency is cutting spending on contracts. NPR's Sydney Lupkin reports. HHS will cut spending on contracts by 35 percent across all federal health agencies. That includes the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the department, confirmed the spending cuts to NPR. He says they're part of an initiative to cut quote unnecessary spending. According

to its contracting website, HHS says it considers contractors as partners, but they have to meet strict acquisition rules and performance and transparency goals. Sydney Lepkin, NPR News. In Myanmar, officials now say the death toll from last week's earthquake has risen to 3,145, but rescue teams have found some bodies in the rubble. You're listening to NPR News. South Korea's Constitutional Court has removed the impeached President Yoon Suk-yul from office. The move comes just four months after the president declared martial law and threw the nation's political system into

turmoil. He also sent troops to the parliament building in Seoul in an ill-fated attempt to break through the country's legislative gridlock. The unanimous verdict takes place more than three months after the opposition controlled National Assembly voted to impeach him. The country must now hold a national election within two months to elect a new president. An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City has killed at least 27 people. Most of them are reported to be women and children. NPR's Ayah Batrani reports that Israel's military says the attack targeted prominent Hamas figures inside the school, but they 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. Eyal Batraoui, MPR News, Dubai. This is NPR.

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