NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-18-2025 4PM EDT

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

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Wait, wait, don't tell me. Fresh air up first. NPR News Now, Planet Money, Ted Radio Hour, ThruLine, the NPR Politics Podcast, CodeSwitch, 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 Herbst. President Trump is backing up Secretary of State Marco Rubio's comments on the U.S. pulling away from negotiating a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. And Piers Diba Shivaram has more. President Trump says he hopes Russian leader Vladimir Putin isn't stalling on a deal and reiterated that he wants to see a deal get done.

But he left the door open on the U.S. pulling out of helping secure a peace deal. If for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we're just going to say you're foolish, you're fools, you're horrible people, and we're going to just take a pass. But hopefully we won't have to do that. If the U.S. isn't involved in negotiating an end to the war, it's unclear if any other nation would be able to step in. Deepa Sivaram, NPR News.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled today that the state's Democratic governor can use his broad veto powers to lock in a 400-year school funding increase. Maria Peralto-Ariano of member station WUWM has more. Wisconsin governors can partially veto spending bills by striking numbers, words, and punctuation. At issue here was Democratic Governor Tony Evers' veto of language that originally related to a $325 per student increase for Wisconsin public schools for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years. Evers vetoed the 20 and the hyphen to make the funding's end date 2425, locking in the annual school funding increase for 400 years.

In a 4-3 decision along party lines, Wisconsin's liberal-controlled state Supreme Court found that the modification is, quote, attention-grabbing, but the state constitution does not limit the governor's partial veto power. For NPR News, I'm Maria Peralta-Ariano in Milwaukee. The stock market is closed today in observance of Good Friday. NPR's Scott Horsley reports stocks have lost ground during the holiday shortened trading week. All the major stock indexes are in the red for the week. Over the last four days, both the Dow and the Nasdaq fell about 2.6 percent. The S&P 500 index lost 1.5 percent.

Asian stocks were mostly higher overnight. The new U.S. Ambassador to Japan arrived in Tokyo and said he's optimistic that a trade deal between the two countries can be reached. For now, imports from Japan, like those from most other countries, face a 10 percent tax in the U.S. Gasoline prices continue to fall heading into the Easter weekend. AAA says the average price of regular gas is about $3.16 a gallon. That's about a nickel less than a week ago, but eight cents higher than this time last month. Scott Horsley, MPR News, Washington. There are now eight states in the U.S. dealing with a measles outbreak.

This after Michigan confirmed a new case near Grand Rapids and Montana public health officials identified five cases in Gallatin County. Earlier this week, Pennsylvania declared an outbreak in Erie County. The majority of the cases though are in Texas where the outbreak started. You're listening to NPR News. A vigil is planned for 5 p.m. Eastern at Florida State University today for the victims of the mass shooting at the Student Union Building on the campus yesterday. Two people are dead, six injured. Tallahassee Memorial Hospital says the injured are improving. Brett Howard is a trauma surgeon at the hospital he says three were operated on. All six of them today are in stable condition, one which is in fair condition given a serious injury.

We do feel that all will make a full recovery. The 20-year-old gunman, whose mother is a local deputy sheriff, was shot and wounded by police. There's still no word on a motive. Chinese goods may soon become harder to find in the United States. Amperes John Ruich reports exporters at a massive trade fair in China say shipments to the U.S. are grinding to a halt in response to President Trump's sky-high tariffs. At the Canton Fair in southern China, tens of thousands of Chinese companies display products, and customers from around the world come to wheel and deal.

But if you ask about trade with the U.S., it's grim. Monica Liang is a sales manager at a company that makes juicers and blenders. Customers from the U.S. have halted orders, she says, and products are piling up in warehouses. Some here expressed optimism that China and the U.S. would strike a deal and avert disaster. But until then, few seem to be selling goods across the Pacific. And many say they're looking for new markets altogether. John Ruch, NPR News, Guangzhou, China. And I'm Janene Hurst, NPR News in Washington.

Aviv Regev is the co-founder of the Human Cell Atlas. Herbst, NPR News in Washington.