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Lakshmi Singh
LIVE from NPR News. I'm Lakshmi Singh. President Trump says he is firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He made the announcement in a social media post just hours after the latest jobs report showed signs of weakness in the US labor market. Stocks have ended the day sharply lower, with major market indices falling 1.25% to more than 2%. NPR Scott Horsley reports on how the jobs data and uncertainty over tariffs are roiling markets.
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Scott Horsley
US employers added just 73,000 jobs in July, and updated figures show virtually no job growth in May and June. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate inched up to 4.2%. The federal government continues to cut jobs and is down about 84,000 since the beginning of the year. Factories also cut 11,000 jobs in July. The manufacturing sector has been hard hit by President Trump's tariffs. As expected, Trump is calling for even higher tariffs on goods from many countries, but in an order issued Thursday, he pushed back the effective date of many of those import taxes for at least another week. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
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Lakshmi Singh
Trump's also targeting the Fed chair. NPR's Franco Ordonez reports. The president's challenging the central bank's board to assume control if the chairman won't lower interest rates.
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Franco Ordonez
President Trump intensified his attacks on the Fed chair Chair Jerome Powell, calling him a moron in a series of social media posts. On the same day, the government released a not so great jobs report. Trump later referred to the Fed chair as, quote, jerome too late, Powell, and called again for rates to be lowered. Policymakers at The Federal Reserve voted 9 to 2 to hold interest rates steady despite the pressure campaign from the president. The fed cut rates 1 percentage point last year, but since then have been waiting to see how the president's new tariffs impact the broader economy. Some investors are predicting a rate cut to come at the next Fed meeting in September. Franco Ordonez, NPR News, the White House.
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Lakshmi Singh
More airdrops over Gaza today. Reuters posting audio of France, Spain and the UAE dropping humanitarian aid into a region where malnutrition is soaring. NPR's Jason DeRose reports on how help is arriving in other ways.
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Jason DeRose
The American Jewish committee is giving $25,000 for the rehabilitation of Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaz. Holy Family is one of only two churches in the embattled enclave. The Jewish group is giving the money to the Archdiocese of New York, which will oversee the funds getting to the congregation. Scores of people, both Christians and Muslims, have been sheltering at Holy Family since the start of the war in Gaza. Multiple people have been killed there by snipers and shelling. The donation comes as a growing number of Jewish leaders in the US Are expressing concerns about Israel's conduct of the war and especially the lack of food being allowed into Gaza. Jason DeRose, NPR News.
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Lakshmi Singh
This is NPR. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting says it's winding down operations and plans to eliminate most positions by September 30th. Congress recently rescinded $1.1 billion from CPB, which helps fund NPR and PBS. Liftoff. SpaceX launching this morning with a crew of four from Florida now on their way to the International Space Station. Two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and a Japanese astronaut spearheading the 19th crewed mission for SpaceX. Once at the ISS, they'll study human stem cells, plant cells and more. The Department of Energy has found a radioactive wasp nest at an old nuclear weapons production facility in South Car. NPR's Jeff Brumfield reports. Officials say the nest poses no risk, but a watchdog group is still concerned.
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Jeff Brumfield
The wasp nest appeared to be empty when workers found it. According to an incident report, the nest was ten times more radioactive than the legal limit. It was located near giant tanks filled with millions of gallons of radioactive sludge, a byproduct of building thousands of nuclear weapons at the height of the Cold War. Workers sprayed the nest with insecticides and then disposed of it as radioactive waste. The Energy Department says there's no threat to the public and no further action needed. But a local group called SRS Watch says the government still hasn't explained how the radioactive material found its way into the environment. Jeff Brumfiel, NPR News.
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Lakshmi Singh
The Dow has closed down 542 points. It's NPR News.
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Jeff Brumfield
Listen to this podcast sponsor free on Amazon Music with a Prime membership or any podcast app by subscribing to NPR news now@plus.NPR.org that's plus NPR.org.