NPR News: 09-04-2025 10PM EDT
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Why does the Health Secretary claim major medical groups can’t be trusted?
Live from NPR News, I'm Janine Herbst. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told a Senate hearing today that the country's major medical and scientific groups can't be trusted. And Pierre Selena Simmons Duffin reports he's clashed with these groups for years as an anti vaccine activist.
Since being sworn in as the country's top health official, Secretary Kennedy has canceled millions of dollars for vaccine research, had his own CDC director fired, and limited the FDA approval for the latest COVID-19 booster. In the Senate Finance Committee hearing, Kennedy explained his theory for why groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics have been critical of these moves.
I think the American Academy of Pediatrics. Is gravely conflicted. They get further their biggest contributors of the four largest vaccine makers.
How did President Trump’s executive order change U.S.–Japan trade tariffs?
The AAP said that was false and misleading, that less than four percent of their revenue comes from industry, and that pediatricians support vaccines because they are safe and they work to protect children's health. Selena Simmonsteffen, NPR News, Washington.
President Trump plans to sign an executive order tomorrow renaming the Defen Department of Defense to the Department of War. That would return the department to what it was called for much of its history until it was renamed in the wake of World War II. The White House says the Secretary of Defense Pete Heggseth could use the title Secretary of War. The White House says it's lowering tariffs on Japanese automobiles as well as removing tariffs on Japanese aircraft exports, and Pierce Daniel Kurtzleben has more. The
White House now says that tariffs on Japanese cars will be reduced from twenty seven point five percent to fifteen percent. In addition, several tariffs Trump had imposed, like those on steel and aluminum, will no longer apply to some Japanese aircraft. The Executive Order also says Japan is giving the US greater market access for some of its exports, and that Japan has promised to invest more than five hundred fifty billion dollars in the US. However, there has been no binding agreement between the two countries, meaning details are still unknown.
What is the significance of designating Ecuadorian gangs as foreign terrorist organizations?
President Trump has announced several trade framework agreements with other countries, but none are finalized. Daniel Kurtzlavin, NPR News, the White House. Secretary
of State Marco Rubio says the US is designating two Ecuadorian gangs blamed for much of the violence that has flared since the pandemic started as foreign terrorist organizations. And he says the US is moving to boost cooperation with Ecuador.
This time we're not just gonna hunt for drug dealers with the little fast boats and say let's try to arrest them. No, we're we're gonna the president has said he wants to wage war on these groups because they've been waging war on us for thirty years and no one has responded. But there's no need to do that in many cases with the friendly governments, because the friendly governments are gonna help us. They may do it themselves. Rubio will meet with
Ecuadorian leaders this week. US futures contracts are trading higher at last check, you're listening to NPR News.
How could new research showing hotter solar flares impact space technology?
Solar flares may be more than six times hotter than scientists previously thought. And Pierre's Nell Greenfield Boyce reports a new analysis says they could be over one hundred million degrees Fahrenheit.
Solar flares are bright bursts of light on the sun that happen when magnetic energy gets released and dumped into ions and electrons. Alexander Russell is with the University of St. Andrews. He says in the past, telescopes have measured the temperature of just the electrons.
And we've kind of just assumed well the ion temperature would be the same as the electron temperature.
But new research suggests that ions get heated up a lot more strongly. And when that's taken into account, their calculations in Astrophysical Journal Letters show that solar flares could be as hot as one hundred and eighty million degrees Fahrenheit. Better understanding of solar flares and related phenomena could help protect satellites and even astronauts from harmful particles and radiation.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Why does the Health Secretary claim major medical groups can’t be trusted?
0:00–0:53
2
How did President Trump’s executive order change U.S.–Japan trade tariffs?
0:53–2:09
3
What is the significance of designating Ecuadorian gangs as foreign terrorist organizations?
2:09–3:00
4
How could new research showing hotter solar flares impact space technology?
3:00–3:57
5
What story behind the recovered 18th‑century portrait reveals Nazi‑era art theft?
3:57–4:38