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Chapter 1: What caused the stock market's sharp decline today?
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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. Stocks opened sharply lower this morning after a weaker-than-expected jobs report. NPR's Scott Horsley reports the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 800 points, or about 2 percent, in early trading.
After an anemic year of hiring in 2025, policymakers had hoped for some stabilization in the job market, but a new report from the Labor Department shows continued weakness. U.S. employers cut 92,000 jobs last month, and revised figures show the economy also lost jobs in December. News of the softening job market comes at a time when Americans are already nervous about the high cost of living.
And those concerns will likely be amplified by the U.S. war with Iran, which has triggered a sharp rise in energy prices. AAA says the average price of gasoline jumped another 7 cents overnight. At $3.32 a gallon, gasoline now costs 21 cents more than it did at this time last year. The price of diesel fuel is up 68 cents from a year ago. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
The gains in energy prices are linked to oil supplies from the Persian Gulf. The war has brought nearly all shipping there to a halt. And that means European and Asian countries could find their supplies of crude oil and natural gas very tight. That includes India. Previously, the Trump administration had sanctioned India to get it to stop buying crude oil from Russia.
President Trump wanted to cut off funding for Russia's war in Ukraine. Now, Energy Secretary Chris Wright says the Trump administration is giving India approval to purchase Russian oil. for 30 days.
We've reached out to our friends in India and said, buy that oil, bring it into your refineries. That pulls stored oil immediately into Indian refineries and releases the pressure on other refineries around the world to buy oil that they're no longer competing with the Indians for in that marketplace.
The Trump administration in India only resolved some of their trade differences a few weeks ago. As Israel and the U.S. continue the offensive in Iran, the World Health Organization says an estimated 100,000 people have fled Iran's capital, Tehran. Some people have made their way overland to Turkey.
The people coming out of Iran look gray-faced and pallid from the terror they've experienced this past week. They bring with them stories of airstrikes hitting close to their cars as they journeyed out of the country, of intense bombardments in the cities that they've come from, many with stories of civilian casualties, saying these airstrikes are landing in dense residential neighbourhoods.
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Chapter 2: How is the job market responding to recent economic reports?
There are also many people going back into Iran. Scared, of course, they say, to go back into a country at war. But with communications largely down, they need to know if their loved ones are safe. And going back is the only way to reach them. Ruth Sherlock, NPR News on the Turkish-Iranian border.
You're listening to NPR News from Washington. Officials in Cuba say power is slowly returning to western parts of the island that were knocked offline this week. Cuba's power grid is fragile. Now the Trump administration is blocking fuel to the country. Cuban officials warn it could take days to fully restore power.
The Pentagon is raising the stakes in its dispute with the artificial intelligence company Anthropic. As NPR's John Brewish reports, Anthropic's CEO says the company has been designated a supply chain risk to U.S. national security.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amadei says in a statement his company received a letter from the Pentagon declaring it a supply chain risk. Anthropic makes the popular AI chatbot Claude, and it's been in a dispute with the Department of Defense over how its AI models can be used.
Anthropic is uncomfortable with the Pentagon potentially being able to use its AI for mass surveillance of Americans and for fully autonomous weapons. The Pentagon has sought permission for all legal uses. According to Amadei, the Pentagon's action has a narrow scope and the vast majority of Anthropic's clients are unaffected.
Amadei says Anthropic does not believe the designation to be legal and has no choice but to challenge it in court, although he says there have been productive discussions. John Rewich, NPR News.
A federal panel has delayed a vote on President Trump's new ballroom at the White House until April. Trump tore down the east wing for the construction. There have been about 35,000 public comments submitted about the building, and they're almost all negative. The panel heard testimony yesterday from 31 people. All but one opposed the ballroom. I'm Corva Coleman, NPR News.
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