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--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, April 9th.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Here's what we're covering. I know what the hell I'm doing. I know what I'm doing. And you know what I'm doing, too. That's why you vote for me.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: As of 12.01 a.m., the latest round of President Trump's aggressive tariffs have taken effect, hitting nearly all of America's trading partners with significant new surcharges.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: They're trade cheaters. They cheated on us. They cheated with tariffs on us. With Trump escalating a global trade war, stock markets around the world have been plummeting for multiple days.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But Trump defended his plan yesterday, repeating his claim that other countries have been ripping off the U.S. for decades. But now it's our turn to do the ripping. That's OK. We're going to make our country even stronger, stronger than it ever was.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Trump's taking particular aim at China, furious that the country has been retaliating with tariffs of its own. When Beijing didn't take his ultimatum to back down, Trump increased the tariffs on Chinese goods to 104 percent as of today.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Now we're at this place where the total tariff on Chinese goods is more than 100 percent. It's just crazy, right?
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But there's also no end in sight. Alexandra Stevenson is the Times-Shanghai bureau chief. She says the soaring tariffs could disrupt hundreds of billions of dollars in trade between the two countries and jack up the prices on everyday goods from baby clothes to paper plates that American shoppers have gotten used to buying cheap from China.
--:-- Alexandra Stevenson: When you look at what the Trump administration has been saying, they're saying, like, we're teaching these countries a lesson. They're going to come to us, and then they're going to do what we want.
--:-- Alexandra Stevenson: And Beijing is saying, no, no, this is their opportunity to show that they're not willing to back down, that they, too, are a global superpower, and that this is not how you treat an economic superpower.
--:-- Alexandra Stevenson: So if you want to talk, we'll come to the table, but not if you're going to continue to talk about punishing China.
--:-- Alexandra Stevenson: So there's a huge amount of uncertainty around the world when the two biggest economies are at loggerheads. And there just doesn't seem like there's any end right now.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Even as Trump tariffs cause chaos worldwide the president said more are coming Last night he said he announce a major tariff on pharmaceuticals soon
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The IRS is preparing to give protected tax data to immigration officers, which could help the Trump administration ramp up its efforts to deport undocumented immigrants.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The personal details of many migrants are in IRS records, because for years the government has encouraged them to file taxes.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That allowed the immigrants to potentially get tax refunds, and for the government, it raised hundreds of billions of dollars.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The private IRS data, which can include names and addresses, is tightly guarded under federal law, But there is a narrow exception for criminal investigations, and the Trump administration is trying to use that to get access.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: According to one former IRS official, sharing the data would be unprecedented, and the Times has learned that several top officials at the tax agency, including the acting commissioner, are now preparing to resign.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Now, three more quick updates on the Trump administration.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I call it beautiful, clean coal. I tell my people, never use the word coal unless you put beautiful, clean before it.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: At the White House yesterday, the president signed a flurry of executive orders to boost the mining and burning of coal, which is one of the main drivers of global warming.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Trump has said he wants to revive the struggling industry. But experts say a major turnaround is unlikely, since other sources of electricity, like wind, solar, and natural gas, have become cheaper.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And hundreds of coal plants in the U.S. have already been shut down.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Also, the administration has made its biggest moves yet against America's elite universities.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Times has learned that it's frozen a billion dollars in federal funding for Cornell and almost $800 million for Northwestern.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The pause on grants and contracts comes as the government is scrutinizing the schools for alleged anti-Semitism and for their efforts to promote diversity.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Cornell and Northwestern were two of dozens of other universities, including state schools and smaller colleges that the administration has said it's investigating
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And at the Supreme Court on Tuesday the administration notched another victory as the court blocked a federal judge's order that would have required it to rehire thousands of fired government workers.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Like the other recent wins for the administration, this one was on procedural grounds and is potentially temporary.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And my colleague Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court, says that's part of a pattern he's noticed as the court has heard a wave of challenges to the administration's policies.
--:-- Adam Liptak: The court has retreated to technical rulings, minor rulings, ones that kick the can down the road.
--:-- Adam Liptak: And it's at least possible that it's doing that to stay out of the political fray and perhaps most important, to avoid a showdown with President Trump who has indicated he may not follow the requirements of Supreme Court rulings.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Plastics are everywhere. They're in our furniture, our food supply, our clothes, cosmetics.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And they don't really biodegrade. They just get smaller and smaller in the environment.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And because they're so small, they can get everywhere, into our soil, air, into the food chain, and into our bodies.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: My colleague Nina Agrawal has been reporting on some of the leading research into microplastics and what they could mean for human health.
--:-- Nina Agrawal: She recently visited a lab at the University of New Mexico, where a team of researchers and toxicologists published a striking finding earlier this year.
--:-- Nina Agrawal: After studying two dozen human brains, they found that the average brain contained roughly 7 grams of plastic.
--:-- Nina Agrawal: That's as much as a disposable spoon or five water bottle caps.
--:-- Nina Agrawal: Nina says that there are some caveats, and the research into microplastics is just getting started.
--:-- Nina Agrawal: But she said the lab then found a correlation between high levels of plastic in the brain and dementia.
--:-- Nina Agrawal: They're also looking at possible connections to heart disease, fertility issues, and multiple sclerosis.
--:-- Nina Agrawal: One thing that was really notable from the lab's research was that the concentration of microplastics in our brains is increasing over time.
--:-- Nina Agrawal: They showed that from 2016 to 2024, the concentration of microplastics in human brains increased by almost 50%.
--:-- Nina Agrawal: And that coincides with what we know about how plastic production has been increasing over time.
--:-- Nina Agrawal: It's estimated to double every 10 to 15 years
--:-- Nina Agrawal: Not all experts agree on what we can do to reduce our exposure but there are several things that scientists say can hurt One is not drinking from plastic water bottles, especially when they've been out in the sun.
--:-- Nina Agrawal: Another is not heating food in plastic.
--:-- Nina Agrawal: But while we can certainly try to take steps to reduce our individual exposure, there's a lot about plastic production that's not in our control.
--:-- Nina Agrawal: And most scientists and public health experts say that that's something that has to be dealt with at the policy level.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally...
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Wow, I can't believe it. I'm going through the portal.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The theme park wars in Florida are heating up.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Disney remains on top, bringing in 50 million guests a year to its Orlando parks.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But Universal is making a big swing.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: You'll enter underneath the Kronos, where all the planets will lie.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Its new park, Epic Universe, opens next month.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It sprawls over 100 acres, was almost a decade in the making, and is estimated to have cost $7 billion.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Times got a look before opening day.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's essentially split into mini-theme parks, pulling from Universal's vast IP holdings.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: So there's areas dedicated to Super Mario, Harry Potter, and even one built around Universal's deep catalog of old monster movies, where Frankenstein, the Wolfman, and the Mummy roam around.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's a little different than bumping into a Disney princess.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Times entertainment reporter Brooks Barnes, who previewed the park at its soft opening, said, Wherever you go, it's immersive.
--:-- Brooks Barnes: Each world is themed down to the music, the smells, the landscaping, even the toilets, depending on what world you're in.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: When it opens, Epic Universe will be hoping to avoid some of the bumps that Universal has hit when it's opened new parks in the past.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In 1990, major rides malfunctioned on opening day.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And when it opened the wizarding world of Harry Potter, there was a six-hour wait just to get inside the gates.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Today on The Daily, an interview with the president of Princeton University as the Trump administration ratchets up its attacks on higher education.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
