NPR News: 02-24-2026 12AM EST
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Live from NPR News, I'm Giles Snyder. President Trump is preparing to deliver his State of the Union address Tuesday evening with fresh uncertainty over tariff policy. NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
U.S.
What recent developments are impacting U.S. tariff policies?
Customs officials say they will stop collecting emergency tariffs just after midnight following Friday's Supreme Court ruling that those tariffs are illegal. Importers who paid those tariffs over the last year will be looking for refunds, although the process for that has yet to be established. President Trump moved quickly to replace the outlawed tariffs with a new set of import taxes set at 15%. By law, those tariffs can remain in place for only five months unless Congress votes to extend them. A 15% tariff would represent a discount for goods from some countries but an increase for other products. That leaves U.S. businesses and trading partners in some doubt about what future levies will look like.
Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
The Mexican government is sending in more soldiers following a military raid on Sunday that killed the country's most wanted cartel leader, a man known as El Mencho. Authorities say an additional 2,000 troops were deployed Monday to the western state of Jalisco, where security forces are battling cartel gunmen. NPR's Eder Peralta is in Guadalajara. He reports on El Mencho's significance.
Within the past 10 years, he turned the Jalisco New Generation cartel into one of the biggest organized crime groups in the world. They took over a whole lot of territory in Mexico and began operating outside the country in Europe and the U.S. The U.S. says El Mencho's cartel trafficked billions of dollars worth of cocaine and fentanyl into the U.S. El Mencho has been indicted several times in American courts, and the U.S. had put a $15 million bounty on his head.
The White House has confirmed that the U.S. provided intelligence support to the initial raid in which authorities say dozens of people were killed. Snow is still piling up in New England from that major winter storm that has slammed the Northeast, knocking out power and making travel impossible in some areas. A record-breaking amount of snow exceeding three feet has fallen in Rhode Island, eclipsing a previous record set almost 50 years ago. Ocean State Media's Ben Burke has more.
Fall River, Massachusetts sits right on the Rhode Island border. In this city of 100,000 people, ambulances and fire trucks are getting stuck in the snow. Mayor Paul Coogan says medics have had to walk for blocks to fulfill some 911 calls. He's calling in outside help to plow and shovel.
It's going to be a while. I've had regular conversations with the governor and lieutenant governor and They're going to be sending some equipment. We're going to be working with the National Guard. But this is like the blizzard of 78 that you all heard about. This is it again.
Coogan says that blizzard shut down driving for over a week and contributed to close to two dozen deaths across the region. For NPR News, I'm Ben Burke in Fall River, Massachusetts.
And you're listening to NPR News. Officials in the UK say the former British ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, has been released on bail. Mandelson was arrested Monday in a misconduct investigation stemming from his ties with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson does not face any sexual misconduct allegations. Police are investigating him over documents suggesting that he passed sensitive government information to Epstein. Taiwan recently negotiated a trade deal with the U.S. and is now uncertain about what should happen next after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the legality of many of President Trump's tariffs, NPR's Emily Fang reports.
As part of the deal, TSMC, which is Taiwan's most powerful semiconductor chip company, also agreed to invest another about $150 billion in the U.S. In return, Taiwan would get some tariff exemptions and lower their overall tariff rate. But now Taiwan's political opposition argues the whole deal should be called off, and they're anxious the U.S.
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