NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-08-2025 4AM EDT

Episode Date: April 8, 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 Shea Stevens. Beijing is vowing retaliation against any additional tariffs on its exports to the United States. President Trump says he'll impose new levies if China does not retract his 34 percent tariffs on U.S. goods. As NPR's Franco Ordoniez reports, Trump made the remarks Monday alongside Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose White House

visit included a request for tariff relief. Nat, Netanyahu in the beginning promised to eliminate trade deficits with the U.S. as well as trade barriers. You know, on the big list of tariff countries, Trump actually imposed a 17% tariff on Israel that Netanyahu made very clear that he wants to address. And Trump used the Prime Minister's proposal to cut trade barriers as an example of how the US is forcing countries to come to the table and try to negotiate. Now, Trump would not say, however, whether he would lower the tariffs on Israel, but he did kind of tease a new trade arrangement.

Danielle Pletka Franko Ordonez reporting. U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts has paused a court deadline for the return of a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. The Trump administration says the matter is out of its hands because the deportee is no longer in U.S. custody. In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul says a migrant woman and her three children are being allowed to return to their home in northern New York. That story from NPR's Brian Mann.

Governor Hockel spoke with White House Border Zare Tom Homan urging him to release the family who live in tiny Sacketts Harbor, New York near the U.S.-Canada border. In a statement, Hockel said Homan told her the mother, two teenagers and a third grader are returning to upstate New York. They were detained in March after an immigration raid at a dairy farm and sent to a detention facility in Texas. Hokel expressed concern for the trauma she said the children and their mother have experienced.

More than a thousand people marched in Sacketts Harbor over the weekend demanding the family's release. Brian Mann, NPR News in northern New York. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is ending its partnerships with the federal government. NPR's Sarah Ventry reports that the move follows the administration's funding freeze on refugee resettlement. The break comes after Catholic Bishops sued the administration in February over its abrupt halt in aid to newly arrived refugees.

The bishops say they are owed millions of dollars that were already allocated. Now the bishops say that the administration's reduction on these programs drastically forces them to reconsider the best way to serve these communities. Archbishop Timothy Brolio is president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops. He says, quote, As a national effort, we simply cannot

sustain the work on our own at current levels or in current form, and he asks for prayers for those affected. The bishops have overseen Catholic agencies who do resettlement work for a century. Sarah Ventry, NPR News. Sarah Ventry, NPR News. U.S. Futures are up slightly in after-hours trading on Wall Street. This is NPR.

Federal health officials have confirmed at least three measles-related deaths since an outbreak began in West Texas earlier this year. Outbreaks of the disease are also being monitored in New Mexico, Ohio, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Additional cases have been reported in 16 other states. Measles is a preventable disease that had been eliminated in the U.S. 25 years ago. South Korea has scheduled a June 3 election to replace President Yun Suk-yoh, who was ousted from office over his decision to declare martial law last December. Primaries to choose the presidential candidate are expected to be held within the coming

weeks. In Texas, a biotech company says it has created creatures with key features of an extinct species, the direwolf. NPR's Rob Stein has details. Colossal Biosciences in Dallas says company scientists edited the genes of gray wolves to breed animals with key traits of direwolves. Direwolves have been extinct for more than 12,000 years and were featured in the HBO series Game of Thrones. The Colossal scientists created embryos from genetically modified gray wolf cells and then implanted them into female dogs.

The surrogate mother dogs gave birth to three healthy wolves with dire wolf traits. The company named the animals Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi. Colossal hopes to do something similar with other extinct species, including the woolly mammoth. Rob Stein, NPR News. This is NPR News. 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.