NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-09-2025 10PM EDT

Episode Date: April 10, 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. President Trump is upping the tariff on Chinese imports to 125 percent, but he is pausing steep new tariffs he'd imposed on other countries at least for 90 days. In the meantime, imports from all over the world will still face a 10 percent across-the-board tax. As NPR's Tamara Keith explains, it marks a sharp reversal for the president, however.

In a post on social media, Trump said the pause would allow time to negotiate new trade deals with dozens of countries. This came just a day after the White House insisted the president wasn't considering a pause. And just hours after, Trump implored people to stay cool while markets continued a multi-day freefall. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessend explained the shift this way. It has brought more than 75 countries forward to negotiate. It took great courage, great courage

for him to stay the course until this moment. Besant said Trump wants to be personally involved in negotiating bespoke trade deals with each country. Tamara Keith, NPR News. House Republicans are postponing a vote on a budget framework amid pushback from some conservative GOP lawmakers. President Trump has admonished the holdouts to, quote, stop showboating and move forward to what he has called a big, beautiful bill. Over some Republican lawmakers are expressing concerns about allowing trillions of dollars in tax breaks without more spending cuts.

Trump has called the budget center his agenda of cutting taxes, smaller government, and mass deportations. House Speaker Mike Johnson says he hopes they can try again tomorrow. A federal appeals court issued a stay on a previous ruling that reinstated thousands of probationary federal workers that were fired by the Trump administration. But Scott Mascioni of Member Station WYPR reports the case is far from over. U.S. District Judge James Bidar had ruled on April 1st that mass firings of about 24,000 probationary federal employees was illegal because the individual states were not informed beforehand

and didn't have time to prepare unemployment benefits for workers. The appellate court says the district court lacked jurisdiction over the claims. Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Virginia, says the case will take on new nuances. Which is all highly very technical and reflects the very preliminary stages of this litigation which is likely to go on for some time. The appeals court is expected to consider the merits of the case in the coming weeks. The ruling comes a day after the Supreme Court issued a stay on a similar case involving

federal workers. For NPR News, I'm Scott Massione. Members of the European Union have voted to approve retaliatory tariffs of their own against the U.S., so it's not clear how they will be affected. By President Trump's announcement, he's pausing further tariff hikes for 90 days, with the exception of China. EU tariffs were in response to 25 percent tariffs imposed by Trump on imported steel and aluminum. For Wall Street, one of the best days in history as markets skyrocketed, the Dow was up nearly 3,000 points today.

You're listening to NPR. The Treasury Department says it's issuing new sanctions aimed at Iran's disputed nuclear program. The announcement coming just days before senior officials are slated to hold talks in the Mideast. Latest sanctions target five entities and one person based in Iran. The Trump administration announced earlier in the week

it was dispatching senior envoys to hold direct talks with Iran about its nuclear program. Scientists have replicated a pathway that senses pain using human nerve cells grown in a dish. NPR's John Hambleton reports on the study in the journal Nature. Pain signals start at a nerve ending, then travel to the spinal cord, to an area deep in the brain, and finally to the brain's outer layer, the cortex. A team at Stanford recreated this pathway using clusters of human neurons designed to

mimic each stop along the way. Dr. Sergio Pascca says then they exposed the nerve endings on one cluster to a chemical found in chili peppers. The neurons that sense these signals get activated and they transmit that information to the next station and the next station all the way to the cortex. Pascca says this sensory pathway in a dish could be used to test drugs meant to block pain. John Hamilton, NPR News.

Soil and rock samples returned to Earth from the far side of the Moon are showing it may be drier than the side that consistently faces the Earth. Chinese scientists reported the findings today while cautioning more samples are needed. China has become the first country to return samples from the Moon's far side last year. A spacecraft scooped up volcanic rock and dirt from an ancient impact basin. Researchers used electron microscopes to analyze the moon samples. 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.