NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-04-2025 1AM EDT

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman. President Trump says business is booming in the U.S. and he says he disagrees with job numbers released by the Department of Labor last week. He fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after those job numbers came out. We're seeing phenomenal numbers in terms of the business we do with other countries and the business we do within our own country. I mean really phenomenal numbers. We'll be announcing a new statistician sometime over the next three four days. Trump was speaking with reporters Sunday on his way back to the White House from a golfing outing. Investors are already having a rocky August after the weaker than

expected jobs report Friday sent major stock indices plunging. But as NPR's Maria Aspin reports, Wall Street is hoping for some reassurance from big companies this week. August is a historically weak month on Wall Street, and this one is starting off in the red. A weak jobs report raised new alarms about the impact President Trump's sweeping tariffs are having on the U.S. economy. Unemployment is ticking up while employers are creating fewer jobs than expected. Investors had largely been shrugging off the tariffs noise after the president paused and

softened some of his initial taxes. But now Trump has announced more of them on imports from dozens of countries. Now investors will be listening closely as more big companies weigh in on the economy, hiring, and the tariffs fall out. Disney, McDonald's, and Marriott are just some of the companies reporting quarterly results this week. Maria Aspin, NPR News. Israel's best-known living writer David Grossman is calling his country's war in Gaza a genocide, NPR's Emily Fang reports. A longtime peace advocate, Grossman has known personal tragedy himself. In 2006, his 20-year-old son was killed while serving in Israel's military in a war with

Lebanon. Grossman has won the International Booker Prize and top Israeli and European literary awards, and now he says with a quote, broken heart that Israel's war in Gaza with Hamas, one that has led to more than 60,000 Palestinian deaths and mass starvation in Gaza, is a genocide. He is in the minority in Israel. In a survey last month of Jewish and Arab Israelis by Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, more than 60% said they were not distressed by the humanitarian situation in Gaza. After Hamas's deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Grossman called for peace with Arab

countries. Emily Fang, and Pyr News, Tel Aviv. Russian officials say a Ukrainian drone attack on an oil depot near a Russian Black Sea resort on Sunday has started a major fire there. More than 120 firefighters have been working on the blaze. Flights in and out of the airport at the nearby resort town of Sochi were stopped briefly because of the blaze. A Russian missile strike, meanwhile, injured seven people in southern Ukraine.

You're listening to NPR News. Hazy skies hung over parts of the Midwest and Northeastern U.S. on Sunday. They were caused by hundreds of wildfires in Canada. The smoke affected air quality in several states, as NPR's Kristen Wright reports. Air pollution reached concerning levels across Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota over the weekend. Parts of Illinois and Indiana are also under air quality alerts. People in New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine are being advised to limit time outside. The National Weather Service's Bob Oruvec says winds pushing polluted air from Canada could last for a while.

That pattern maintains itself going forward through this week. So it doesn't really appear to be any big break. There may be a day or so where there's a temporary break to it, but overall it looks like there is potential for additional smoke to be transported southeastward into the United States. Canada's government reports more than 700 active fires and its second worst wildfire season on record. Kristen Wright, NPR News. Texas Democrats left the state house on Sunday

to prevent a vote on a new redistricting map that creates five more districts that would be safe for Republican candidates. President Trump has pushed Texas Republicans to change the map ahead of next fall's midterm elections. The changes could help the GOP hang on to the House of Representatives. Major League Baseball's Speedway Classic finally made it across the finish line Sunday with the Atlanta Braves beating the Cincinnati Reds 4-2. The game was scheduled for Saturday in the infield of the historic Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee. But rain postponed the game and the bottom of the first inning, a record crowd for a regular season game, was on hand for

Sunday. I'm Dale Willman, NPR News.