The Headlines - Supreme Court Clears Way for Deportations, and a Stock Market Fake-Out

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

Plus, a new push to clone ancient animals. On Today’s Episode:Supreme Court Clears Way for Venezuelan Deportations to Resume, for Now, by Abbie VanSickleSupreme Court Temporarily Blocks Order Requiring Return of Wrongly Deported Migrant, by Adam LiptakStocks Whipsaw With S&P 500 on the Precipice of a Bear Market, by Joe Rennison, Eshe Nelson and River Akira DavisKennedy Calls for States to Ban Fluoridated Drinking Water, by Emily Baumgaertner NunnTrump Administration to Roll Back Array of Gun Control Measures, by Glenn ThrushU.S. and Iran Will Hold Nuclear Talks on Saturday, by David E. Sanger and Farnaz FassihiScientists Revive the Dire Wolf, or Something Close, by Carl ZimmerTune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. 

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, April 8th. Here's what we're covering. The Supreme Court has issued two emergency rulings on the Trump administration's immigration policies that, at least for now, are victories for President Trump. Last night, the court ruled the administration can continue deporting Venezuelan migrants, that it's accused of being violent gang members trying to invade the US.

The administration has been citing the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime power from the 1700s, in carrying out those deportations. The court didn't rule on whether that's constitutional or not, instead, it made a more narrow ruling that lawyers for the Venezuelans had filed their challenge to the deportations in the wrong court. The Supreme Court said that since the men had been held in Texas, the case should have started there and not in Washington, D.C. While the administration can now press forward with its deportation plans, all nine justices

did agree that the government has to give the Venezuelans who are detained advance notice that it plans to deport them and the opportunity to challenge that. Some of the migrants who've already been deported under the Alien Enemies Act have had little to no due process. Also, the Trump administration was facing a midnight deadline last night to bring back a man it mistakenly deported to El Salvador. But Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts paused the order requiring his return after the administration asked the court to step in.

The administration's arguing that it doesn't have the authority to bring back someone who is no longer in U.S. custody and that federal judges don't have the authority to bring back someone who is no longer in U.S. custody, and that federal judges don't have the power to tell the administration how to conduct foreign policy. Roberts said he paused the order to give the Supreme Court more time to take up those bigger questions. The full court is expected to weigh in in the next few days. Meanwhile, the Times has learned that the Trump administration is gearing up for a massive

expansion of its deportation efforts. ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has asked contractors to submit proposals for detention facilities, transportation, security guards, and other services, and said the budget could be up to $45 billion for the next two years. By comparison, that's more than 10 times the amount ICE had for detention operations last fiscal year. The agency doesn't yet have the money, it will need Congress for that. But the call for proposals is the first concrete sign that it's preparing to quickly scale up detentions in the U.S. Yep, the markets have once again opened with major losses this morning.

There it is. Monday was another brutal and chaotic day on the stock market as President Trump's tariffs continue to rock the global economy. You've seen a number of analysts and economists across Wall Street start to ratchet up their expectations for the odds of a recession. In a sign of just how volatile the markets are, reports that Trump was considering pausing the tariffs sent stocks shooting up. Investors let out a sigh of relief. But it then turned out the report was totally false and stocks fell back down. Governments around the world are just as on edge as investors.

They've been racing to schedule phone calls with the White House or send delegations in the hopes they can negotiate on the tariffs, even as the president has said the surcharges are here to stay. Yesterday at the White House, reporters pressed Trump on the issue. There have been some mixed messages

from your administration. You're talking about negotiations, and yet others in your administration are saying that these tariffs are actually permanent. What is that? Well, it could be. They can both be true. There can be permanent tariffs and there can also be negotiations.

What he's been saying when people call him, as happened over the weekend, a few people who spoke to him privately over the weekend, is in these conversations he's boasting. He's saying, everyone's calling me, they're all kissing my ass, they all want to do deals, they're begging me. He's in that kind of a mode. My colleague Jonathan Swan is on today's episode of The Daily with an inside look at how the White House has been rolling out the tariffs and if Trump is serious about keeping them in place, or if they're a high stakes negotiating tactic.

You know, you asked that question of people around him and they said, well, no, not really. He might do some deals, but actually, no, he's really quite set on this idea of eliminating trade deficits and reshoring manufacturing and building things here in America. So you have these two things running into each other. One problem that some of his advisors have, I would say most of his advisors have, if

they're being honest, is get criticized a lot for, well, your messaging is so all over the place. It's like, yeah, no kidding. Because the man in charge, yeah, from one minute to the other. It's like he's in deal making mode and then he's in no, this is an economic revolution and you need to hang tough. You're getting these competing messages. Now, three more updates on the Trump administration.

First. Fluoride should not be in our water. It makes no sense to have it in our water supply. I'm very, very proud of this state for being the first state to ban it and I hope many more will come. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called on states to stop adding fluoride to drinking water, a move that could undercut decades of public health efforts to prevent tooth decay.

He made the remarks in Utah, where a statewide ban on fluoride kicks in next month. While some studies have found that fluoride in very high doses can have negative health effects, dentists and many medical experts say that the amount being added to drinking water is safe and essential for protecting oral health. Kennedy's currently on what he's calling a Make America Healthy Again Tour across the

Southwest. Also, the Times has learned that Attorney General Pam Bondi wants to roll back a number of gun control measures, reversing actions that the Biden administration put in place. She's expected to eliminate a zero tolerance policy that strips licenses from gun dealers who are found to have skipped background checks or falsified records. And she's looking to scrap two other policies, one that requires background checks for private gun sales and a ban on an accessory that turns handguns

into rifle-style weapons. And... We're having direct talks with Iran. And they've started. It'll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we'll see what can happen. President Trump said the U.S. will begin negotiations with Iran this weekend, in hopes of reining

in the country's nuclear program. It's a major reversal for Trump, who pulled the U.S. out of the last nuclear agreement with Iran during his first term. Since then, Iran has built up its capabilities and now has enough fuel to quickly build a half dozen nuclear weapons. Iranian officials told the Times the talks will only begin with intermediaries, but that the countries could engage directly if the initial meetings go well. Trump threatened that if the two sides don't reach an agreement, Iran would be in, quote,

great danger. And finally, scientists have brought back the ancient extinct direwolf, or something close to it. If you thought direwolves were only a thing from the fantasy series Game of Thrones, you are not alone. They've been gone for over 13,000 years, but they used to dominate southern Canada and the US. They're bigger than grey wolves, with massive teeth, and they have thick, white fur. Researchers were able to retrieve DNA from some dire wolf fossils a few years ago, and another group of scientists said it edited the genes of other wolves to match those.

They then created embryos from the edited genes and, there you go, Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi were born. The pups appear to have some traits of the direwolf. They're being raised at an undisclosed location in the northern United States. The company behind the direwolf's return is Colossal Biosciences, which has experimented in the past with how you might try to bring back a woolly mammoth or a dodo bird. A few years ago, they began focusing on dire wolves instead. Their close relation to dogs makes it a bit easier. For some, the hope is that the techniques used here could be used to conserve species

that are extinct or on the cusp of extinction. But right now, they don't know anything about how the direwolves would behave in the wild since they're so closely monitored. As one colossal scientist said, quote, they are essentially living the Ritz-Carlton lifestyle of a wolf. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.