NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-07-2025 10PM EDT

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

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Am I a propagandist? A truth teller? An influencer? There's probably no more contested profession in the world today than mine, journalism. I'm Brian Reed, and on my show, Question Everything, we dive head first into the conflicts we're all facing over truth and who gets to tell it. Listen now to Question Everything, part of the NPR Podcast Network. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. President Donald Trump says he does not want to pull back on his 145 percent tariffs on Chinese goods as a way to kick-start negotiations. As NPR's Daniel Kurtzleben reports, in the two countries trade war, the current argument is over who even wants to negotiate. China has said that it wants the U.S. to be prepared to cancel its tariffs on Chinese goods as a precursor to trade negotiations.

Asked by a reporter whether he would cancel those tariffs, Trump flatly said no. Both countries are sensitive about the optics of negotiations. Trump has said China has reached out about starting talks. China has denied this and said the U.S. initiated talks. They said we initiated? Well, I think they ought to go back and study their files. This weekend, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jameson Greer are set to talk trade in Switzerland with a Chinese economic official.

Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News, The White House. Trump, meanwhile, is now promising what he calls a major trade deal announcement tomorrow. On the first day of the conclave in Vatican City, black smoke poured out of a chimney at the Sistine Chapel. That means the more than 130 cardinals meeting to choose a successor to Pope Francis to lead the 1.4 billion member church did not choose a candidate on the first ballot. NPR's Jason DeRose is in Vatican City and says it's still too early to predict how long the process might take.

Most recent conclaves have been fairly short, between one and three days. So I'd expect something in that vicinity. Starting tomorrow, there'll be two morning votes and two afternoon votes until someone gets a two-thirds supermajority. The thought is that nobody wants a long conclave because it could signal disunity or internal conflicts, and I am not expecting a reenactment of the 13th century papal election that lasted almost three years. Cardinals will spend the night at Vatican Residences

where they're being sequestered and returned to the Sistine Chapel tomorrow. Stocks closed higher today after the Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates steady. NPR's Scott Horsley reports that Central Bank is taking a wait-and-see approach to President Trump's trade war. The Federal Reserve says the worldwide tariffs President Trump ordered last month raised the risk of higher inflation, higher unemployment, or in the worst-case scenario, both. But Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says it's not clear whether the tariffs will remain in place

or just how they'll affect the economy, so he and his colleagues feel no great urgency to adjust interest rates just yet. Look at the state of the economy. The labor market is solid, inflation is low. We can afford to be patient as things unfold. There's no real cost to our waiting at this point. President Trump has repeatedly urged the central bank to lower interest rates, but Powell says he and his colleagues are focused on the economy's performance, not social media posts from the White House.

Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington. Taking a look at the Wall Street numbers, the Dow is up 284 points. The Nasdaq rose 48 points today. You're listening to NPR. The UN says Palestinians in Gaza face catastrophic levels of food insecurity. Israel says its nine-week ban on food entering Gaza is to pressure Hamas to surrender. With food stocks running out, people are doing their best to stretch what's left. And Barzana's Baba visited a mill near Gaza City where families are grinding dry foods

as a substitute for flour. We do have many families and residents that came today to grind what they still have inside of their own inventory from food. Some of them, they came to grind lentils, other they grind beans, and the others rice. As an alternative to the flour, the situation in Gaza is deteriorating more and more. The people now are just eating and consuming the last drops of food that they still have.

All of the markets, they don't have even fresh food, no protein, no chicken, no meat. Even there is no vegetables, no eggs, no milk. And now the people are trying to eat anything that they do have here in order just to survive. The federal judge overseeing the sex trafficking trial of music mogul Sean Diddy Combs says he expects a jury in the case to be seated by week's end. Judge granting a request by lawyers today for extra time to decide who will be eliminated from a list of 45 prospective jurors. The 55-year-old Combs has pleaded not guilty to racketeering and sex trafficking charges

following his arrest in September. The trial is being held in a Manhattan courtroom. Critical futures prices lost ground today oiled down more than a dollar a barrel in New York to $58.07 a barrel. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things and other currencies. NPR News in Washington.