Category: International

Americans are rushing to car dealerships as they worry about what President Trump’s tariffs will do to car prices in the coming months. New vehicle sales have been increasing steadily this year, and they jumped in March, according to market research firm Cox Automotive. That’s the month when President Trump announced upcoming auto tariffs.

Shoppers are racing to buy cars this spring because they believe that prices are going to go up in the summer and fall. And experts say if tariffs remain in place, that’s likely.

It’s a gamble President Trump is making – with the hope his tariff strategy will lead domestic car companies to make more vehicles at home.

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly talks with Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley, who was at Ford’s Kentucky truck plant, about Trump’s tariffs, and Ford’s future.

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President Trump is pushing the boundaries of executive power in nearly every area of policy. From his trade war, to immigration, to education, to the reductions in the federal workforce.

Many of his actions are direct challenges to the Courts and to Congress. Those two branches of government are designed to act as checks on the president.

Trump has governed largely by unilateral executive action… and left lawmakers on the sidelines.

NPR’s Juana Summers talks with political correspondents Mara Liasson and Susan Davis about the changing power dynamic.

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An NPR investigation has been following President Trump’s efforts to retaliate against his perceived enemies since he returned to the Oval Office in January.

NPR’s Tom Dreisbach found that Trump’s targets are already facing the consequences – including criminal investigations, attempted deportations, and firings.

Trump has used government power to target more than 100 people or institutions across American society – and they’re all feeling the consequences.

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About one in 31 children in the U.S. has been identified with autism spectrum disorder, according to CDC data released this month.

When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discussed these findings, he declared that autism is a rapidly growing “epidemic” in the U.S. and vowed to identify the “environmental toxin” he says is to blame.

Which of Kennedy’s remarks rang true to those in the autism community?

Jill Escher is the president of the National Council on Severe Autism, and had both gratitude and criticism for the new initiative.

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and threats to make Canada the 51st state have become some of the biggest issues facing Canadians as they head to the polls in their federal election on April 28th.

Scott Detrow speaks to Lloyd Axworthy, a member of the Liberal party, who served as Canada’s top diplomat between 1996-2000, about the schism between the two longtime North American allies and how Canada’s next prime minister can reposition the country’s foreign and economic policy in the face of growing tensions with the United States.

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Long before he was elected to run the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis was essentially exiled from his Argentinian Jesuit order. Francis often referred to this two-year period, which happened when he was in his 50s, as a “dark night” and a “crisis” in his life.

For our weekly Reporter’s Notebook series, we talk with NPR religion editor Daniel Burke about what he learned by digging into this little known period of Francis’ life that shaped him and his papacy.

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Whether a “chainsaw,” per Elon Musk, or “scalpel,” as President Trump has said — the Trump administration is making deep cuts to the federal government within its first 100 days.

And Trump has appointed personal allies with little experience in government to key cabinet positions.

For the civil servants working to enact the missions of these government agencies, that’s often meant another word: “chaos.”

NPR correspondents Tom Bowman, Michele Kelemen and Selena Simmons-Duffin recap what they are hearing from federal workers at the Departments of Defense, State, and Health and Human Services.

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When you think of a successful protest movement, most Americans probably think of the American Civil Rights movement, and the March on Washington in 1963.

Martin Luther King, Jr. standing behind a podium on the steps of the Lincoln memorial delivered his most famous speech and a line that would come to define the goals of the Civil Rights Movement.

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act just nine months after the March. A year after that Johnson signed the National Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The quest for equality continues. In the decades since that bright summer day in August 1963, many other Americans have tried to use the model of protest to achieve their political goals.

But do protests work?

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On March 23, the death toll in Gaza surpassed 50,000 people killed by Israeli fire in the war with Hamas.

This is the story of 15 people who were killed the same day.

There were airstrikes across the territory, and in the south Israeli troops opened fire on a crew of emergency workers in ambulances and a firetruck.

At first, the Israeli military said the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” toward troops, “without headlights or emergency signals.” It said the soldiers had eliminated a number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants.

A recording unearthed days later told a different story ultimately leading the Israel to conduct an investigation. The results blamed an “operational misunderstanding” and cite professional failures.

In more than 18 months of war – it’s been rare for the Israeli Military to acknowledge failure.

Coming up the story of what happened.

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What does it take to keep the economy stable?

That is a question that Jerome Powell considers every day in his role as Chair of the Federal Reserve. It’s also a role that is meant to be done independent of politics.

However, Powell’s name has been making headlines, following a series of comments made by President Trump attacking Powell, after he warned that the President’s aggressive tariff policies could hurt the economy.

President Trump has been threatening to fire Powell, something he backed away from Tuesday afternoon.

As NPR’s Scott Horsley reports, all this is further rattling financial markets, making Jerome Powell’s task of keeping the economy stable even harder to do.

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