NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-17-2025 4PM EDT

Episode Date: April 17, 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 dot npr dot org. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janene Hurst. Law enforcement says a suspect in the shooting today at Florida State University has been, quote, neutralized. At least six people were injured. Ampere's Greg Allen reports Tallahassee police say the campus has been secured. The shootings began around noon near the Student Union Building in Tallahassee.

Police responded quickly and began evacuating students to safety. Several people injured in the shootings were being treated at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital with one listed in critical condition. Although the campus has reopened, students are being told to avoid the Student Union and other buildings that are still considered

part of an active crime scene. At the White House, President Trump said he'd been fully briefed on the shootings, calling them horrible. Florida State University says it's canceled all classes and business operations on campus the rest of the week and athletics events through Sunday. Greg Allen, NPR News. And there's no word yet on a motive. AIDS activists outside the State Department today warned that the Trump administration cuts could lead to a new AIDS crisis around the world. As N MPs Michelle Kellerman reports, millions of

people rely on a Bush administration-era program known as PEPAR for HIV treatment. Dressed in black and marching along with drums, activists stacked 200 coffins in front of the State Department. They represented the 20 million people around the world who rely on U.S. programs for their AIDS medication. Activist Peter Stanley says President Trump's budget cuts are putting all that at risk. Is he fully aware what Elon Musk is about to do to his legacy? That he is going to be the president

known as relaunching the AIDS crisis around the world. Stanley says he still hopes that President Trump will ask his secretary of state to restart PEPFAR as Marco Rubio has promised to do. Michelle Kelliman, NPR News, the State Department. President Trump is criticizing the chairman of the Federal Reserve for not lowering interest rates. Empire Scott Horsley reports Trump's own trade war is making that more difficult by putting upward pressure on prices.

Trump accused the Federal Reserve of dragging its feet on interest rates even as the European Central Bank lowers borrowing costs there. The president says Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will face mounting political pressure for a rate cut without noting most of that pressure is coming from Trump himself. I would say the Fed really owes it to the American people to get interest rates down. That's the only thing he's good for. Powell told the Economic Club of Chicago this week that Trump's tariffs are likely to cause higher inflation, at least temporarily.

That's a big reason the Fed is taking its time in cutting rates. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington. Wall Street mixed at the close. The Dow down 527 points. The Nasdaq down 20 points. The S&P 500 up seven. Wall Street will be closed tomorrow in observance of Good Friday. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. In California, a judge says a long-waited resentencing hearing for the Menendez brothers, convicted nearly 35 years ago for killing their parents, can proceed today. This after the L.A. District Attorney filed a motion to postpone, which the judge rejected.

Eric and Lyle Menendez's lawyer wants the judge to resentence the two to the lesser charge of manslaughter, citing years of alleged sexual abuse from their father. They're serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1989 murders of their parents. It's a hearing that could eventually lead to the brothers' release from prison. An archaeological dig recently unearthed the capital of an ancient kingdom of Cabo in West Africa. Ari Daniel has more.

When Cabo fell in the 19th century, it was the last of the African kingdoms before European colonialism. The stories of its reign have been passed down for generations by a group of oral historians known as the Griots. Nino Galisa is one. It seemed to me like a story, a fiction. He says to him, Cabo was a fiction, a story. Then, in 2024, a team of Spanish and Senegalese archaeologists began to exhume Kansala, the capital, in modern-day Guinea-Bissau.

They found physical evidence of the people and places that had been mentioned in the songs of the griots. The researchers asked Elisa if he'd transformed their findings into music. He sings about what touched him so that what the griots have described for generations is real. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. Hey, it's Amartinez. Even as the host of a news show, it can be hard to keep up with You're listening to NPR News from Washington.