NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-09-2025 2AM EDT

Episode Date: August 9, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Wilman. President Trump will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin next Friday in Alaska. They'll discuss ending the war in Ukraine. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump says it's time to bring that war to an end. Europe wants to see peace. The European leaders want to see peace. President Putin, I believe, wants to see peace. The meeting is a potential breakthrough after weeks of Trump expressing frustration that Russia was not doing more to end the fighting.

The war began more than three years. ago when Russia invaded its western neighbor. President Trump is expressing anger and alarm at the possibility that many of his tariffs could be overturned in court. Among the tariffs that could be repealed are the dozens of country-by-country tariffs that went into effect this week. MPR's Danielle Kurtzleben has more. In May, the Federal Court of International Trade ruled that tariffs Trump has imposed on

individual countries are illegal. The Trump administration immediately appealed and an appeals court has heard arguments in that case. Trump posted on social media that if the court rules against his tariffs, quote, it would be impossible to ever recover or pay back these massive sums of money and honor. This follows other posts this week referring to the possibility of judges halting his tariffs. Trade law experts say that if the tariffs are found illegal, the government would have to provide refunds to companies that initially paid the tariffs.

Danielle Kurtzleben and PR News, the White House. One of NASA's most famous astronauts has died. Jim Lovell is probably best remembered as commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 when an explosion crippled a spacecraft. But Lovell said his other lunar trip was even more notable. Lovell was 97 years old, and Piers Russell Lewis has our remembrance. Jim Lovell flew in space four times. He called the 1968 flight of Apollo 8 the high point of his career. That was the first time humans left Earth orbit and went to the moon.

In 2014, he said his greatest impression was not looking down at the moon. but seeing the earth from a quarter million miles away. Just a small ball, blue and white, like a Christmas tree ball hung in an absolutely black sky. I could put my thumb up and completely hide the earth. Everything I knew was behind my thumb. It just disappeared. Before joining NASA, Lovell graduated from the Naval Academy, flew in the Navy and served as a test pilot. Russell Lewis, NPR News.

Police in Atlanta say one suspect and a police officer are dead following a shooting near Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Friday night. There have been no reports of civilian injuries. The suspected shooter was found on the second floor of a building across from the CDC and died at the scene. Police say they have no motive for the shooting that left bullet holes in several windows in CDC buildings. Stocks finished up on Wald Street Friday, the Dow finished up 206 points. You're listening to NPR News. Six transgendered Georgians who are incarcerated in state prisons have filed a class action lawsuit challenging a new ban on gender-affirming treatments for state prison inmates.

As WAB's Sam Greenglass reports, the plaintiffs, which include three men and three women, say the law violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments. Lawyers for the plaintiffs say all five have been diagnosed with. gender dysphoria and have been prescribed drug treatment or are seeking evaluations for it. The federal lawsuit says one plaintiff in Phillips State Prison had received hormone replacement therapy since 2019, which has helped address depression so severe she attempted suicide. The lawsuit says the treatment has now been halted. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr pledged to, quote, fight this all the way to the Supreme Court. The legislation creating the treatment ban was a flashpoint during the last legislature.

session. In the House, most Democrats walked out in protest during the vote. For NPR News, I'm Sam Greenglass in Atlanta. Nagasaki is marking the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city 80 years ago. About 2,600 people attended a memorial event Saturday at the Nagasaki Peace Park. Participants included representatives from more than 90 countries along with the country's prime minister. Survivors have committed to a goal of abolishing nuclear weapons, even as they worry the world is moving in the opposite direction. Some seven 70,000 people were killed in the attack that came just three days after the bombing of Hiroshima that killed 140,000. Japan surrendered just days later. I'm Dale Wilman, NPR News.