NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-20-2025 5PM EDT

Episode Date: April 20, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janene Herbst. Russia and Ukraine are blaming each other for carrying out attacks in violation of a temporary Easter Day ceasefire. The truce proposal was announced in a unilateral move by Russian President Putin yesterday. MPR's Charles Mainz has more from Moscow. Even before the Easter ceasefire technically went into effect, both sides voiced skepticism the truce would hold. Putin warned of possible Ukrainian provocations, and Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky,

suggested the offer was more gimmick than peace gesture. Today, Russia's defense ministry said Ukraine carried out hundreds of artillery and drone strikes on Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine. Intern Zelensky said Russia continued shelling and assault raids across the frontline. Neither claim could be independently verified. The ceasefire attempt comes as President Trump has threatened to abandon efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict if he didn't see immediate progress towards peace. Charles Maynes, NPR News, Moscow.

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen says the U.S. is in a constitutional crisis as the Trump administration continues to ignore court orders in the Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia case. He made the remark days after he returned from meeting with Abrego-Garcia in El Salvador after the Trump administration admitted they deported him by mistake. If you can deny one person their constitutional rights. That is a threat to the constitutional rights of everybody who lives in the United States of America. So that's the bottom line. They need to obey the court orders and bring him home so he can have due process. Danielle Pletka Speaking there to NPR's Weekend Edition.

The White House says the Maryland man is never coming back to the U.S., alleging he's a gang member, which he denies. His lawyer says the federal government never produced evidence of their claim. Businesses and investors are trying to get ahead of President Trump's tariffs and their impact on the economy. As NPR's Maria Aspin reports, some of the country's biggest companies, including White House adviser and billionaire Elon Musk's Tesla, will talk about their strategy this week. It's the height of corporate earnings season when big publicly traded companies report their most recent quarterly results and talk about the future. But so far this spring, President Trump's tariffs are cloudy in the outlook.

Investors are waiting to hear from Tesla, the carmaker run by billionaire Elon Musk, who is also one of Trump's closest and most powerful advisors. But Musk has criticized the new tariffs, which are likely to damage his car company. Tesla's sales are already falling, as consumers protest Musk's role

in cutting government agencies, programs, and workers. Other big companies reporting results this week include Google and Pepsi, which has operations around the world. Maria Aspen, NPR News, New York. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. Google will be back in court tomorrow for the final phase of a landmark antitrust case that could see the online giant broken up. In 2020, a judge ruled it's a monopoly after the Justice Department sued, accusing it of paying the makers of web browsers and phones to set Google as the default search engine.

Google says it will appeal. The tech company's highly profitable ad business is powered by data it harvests from user activity on Chrome and Google search. Tomorrow the Justice Department and Google will each present their idea of an appropriate remedy for the monopolistic behavior, which the government says could include selling its Android operating system or spinning off the Chrome browser. The new supernatural blues movie Sinners found salvation at the box office this weekend, and here's Bob Mandello has more.

Sinners is about the power of the blues, and also about vampires, and that combination is making it a number one hit this weekend. The film is expected to take in more than $45 million at the box office in its first three days. That's enough to get past the third weekend of the Minecraft movie, which will take in about $41 million. Sinners reunites filmmaker Ryan Coogler and his frequent leading man Michael B. Jordan, who's playing a double role this time. You twins? Now we cousins.

Actually, they are twins. Coogler and Jordan also work together on Black Panther and on Creed, the film that puts some punch back in the ailing Rocky franchise. Bob Mandelo, NPR News. And I'm Janene Hurst. And you're listening to NPR News from Washington.