China strikes back as stocks slide after worst day since 2020

A federal judge today ruled that the Trump administration disobeyed the court’s previous order that blocked the administration from withholding federal funds to states.

U.S. District Chief Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island found that the administration violated the court order by pausing the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disbursement of millions of dollars in grant funding to states.

The judge wrote, “States have presented evidence that strongly suggests that FEMA is implementing this manual review based, covertly, on the President’s January 20, 2025 executive order — ‘Protecting the American People Against Invasions,’” which is meant to withhold funds from “sanctuary” jurisdictions that don’t assist with administration’s immigration policies.

“FEMA received notice of the preliminary injunction order, the order is clear and unambiguous, and there is no impediments to FEMA’s compliance with the order. The record makes clear that FEMA’s manual review process imposes an indefinite pause on the disbursement of federal funds to states,” the judge added.

A federal judge in Massachusetts tonight issued a final judgement and permanent injunction in a case involving the Trump administration cutting medical research funding in 22 states. 

In the order, the judge sided with the states that brought the suit. They had alleged that the funding cuts would “halt…cutting edge work” used to cure and treat human disease.

As a result of the ruling, the National Institutes of Health must continue to fund research grants at the full amount in accordance with original agreements.

The two states made the move a day after Democratic officials in 19 others filed a similar lawsuit.

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown told a news conference that Washington and Oregon sued separately because they conduct elections entirely by mail and would be particularly harmed by the president’s efforts.

“Neither the Constitution nor any federal law gives the president authority to set rules for how states conduct elections,” Brown said.

Friday’s lawsuit is the fifth against the executive order since it was issued last week. The order includes new requirements that people provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a demand that all mail ballots be received by Election Day.

President Donald Trump's administration acted to roll back environmental protections around future logging projects on more than half of U.S. national forests under an emergency designation Friday that cites the dangers of wildfires.

Whether the move will boost production remains to be seen. Former President Joe Biden's administration also sought to ramp up logging on public lands to combat fires that are worsening as the world gets hotter, yet U.S. Forest Service timber sales dipped under the Democrat's tenure.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins did not mention climate change in Friday's directive, which called on her staff to streamline environmental reviews. It exempts affected forests from an objection process that allows outside groups, tribes and state or local governments to challenge logging proposals at the administrative level before they are finalized. It also narrows the number of alternatives federal officials can consider when weighing logging projects.

Read the full story from The Associated Press here

The White House today touted that Trump unleashed “economic prosperity” this week — despite markets plunging for a second straight day on the news of sweeping tariffs.

“It was another highly successful week for the American people as President Donald J. Trump continues his relentless pursuit of strength, prosperity, and peace — and lays the foundation for America to be the global powerhouse for generations to come,” the White House said in a statement.

The statement did not mention the market turmoil, which included the broad-based S&P 500 closing down 6%, while Nasdaq fell 5.8% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 2,200 points, roughly 5.5%.

While the markets are not a direct measure of the economy, many Wall Street economists this week said that the new tariffs could lead to a recession.

The Senate dived into contentious debate Friday on a budget plan critical to Republican efforts to pass trillions of dollars in tax cuts and boost border security and defense spending through what President Donald Trump calls “one big beautiful bill.”

Passage of the plan would give Republicans the chance in coming months to muscle a tax cut bill through both chambers of Congress even if Democrats are unanimously opposed, just as they did in Trump's first term.

Democrats are intent on making the effort as politically painful as possible, beginning with all-night votes on dozens of proposals that GOP senators will have to defend before next year’s mid-term elections, including on Trump’s tariff policies and the administration’s efforts to shrink the federal government.

Republicans are framing their work as preventing a tax increase for most American families. Unless Congress acts, the individual and estate tax cuts that Republicans passed in 2017 will expire at the end of this year.

Read the full story here.

After Trump administration job cuts, nearly half of National Weather Service forecast offices have 20% vacancy rates — twice that of just a decade ago — as severe weather chugs across the nation's heartland, according to data obtained by The Associated Press.

Detailed vacancy data for all 122 weather field offices show eight offices are missing more than 35% of their staff — including those in Arkansas where tornadoes and torrential rain hit this week — according to statistics crowd-sourced by more than a dozen National Weather Service employees. Experts said vacancy rates of 20% or higher amount to critical understaffing, and 55 of the 122 sites reach that level.

The weather offices issue routine daily forecasts, but also urgent up-to-the-minute warnings during dangerous storm outbreaks such as the tornadoes that killed seven people this week and “catastrophic” flooding that's continuing through the weekend. The weather service this week has logged at least 75 tornado and 1,277 severe weather preliminary reports.

Because of staffing shortages and continued severe weather, meteorologists at the Louisville office were unable to survey tornado damage Thursday, which is traditionally done immediately to help improve future forecasts and warnings, the local weather office told local media in Kentucky. Meteorologists there had to chose between gathering information that will help in the future and warning about immediate danger.

Trump is on a tariff spree — and it’s unclear if Congress will try to stop him.

Trump’s executive order implementing his so-called reciprocal tariffs says that he derives his authority from laws including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergency Act.

Trump is the first president ever to use the IEEPA to impose tariffs, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The legislative branch has the power to tax under the U.S. Constitution. And as the stock market sell-off deepens, some bipartisan opposition to Trump’s tariffs is starting to emerge.

A federal judge agreed on Friday to block the Trump administration from dismantling an independent agency that distributes grant money to community development groups in Latin American and Caribbean countries.

U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan ruled that the administration doesn’t have the authority to remove the head of the Inter-American Foundation, which is governed by a bipartisan nine-member board.

Congress created the foundation more than 50 years ago. It has disbursed $945 million to thousands of grant recipients in roughly three dozen countries.

Trump spent roughly 6 hours at his Florida golf club today as the tariffs he implemented worldwide continued to rattle stock markets and spark economic uncertainty.

The White House called a lid at 3:42 p.m. ET, meaning Trump did not speak to reporters at all today.

Markets have continued to tumble in reaction to Trump's tariff announcement, with the Dow and S&P 500 dropping 6% and 5.5%, respectively.

On Thursday, the S&P had its worst day since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer roasted Trump for visiting one of his Florida golf courses as stock markets plummeted over the tariffs fallout.

“While we’re here doing all of this, it’s my understanding that Donald Trump’s out at a golf course,” Schumer told reporters as he said he and other Democrats will force a vote on an amendment to rescind certain tariffs.

“Now I don’t know if he’s playing today or if he’s caddying for somebody,” the New York lawmaker said. “I don’t know if anyone trusts him to caddy, but that’s what he’s up to.”

Schumer added: “It just shows the disconnect from this President and what we’re seeing with these tariffs.”

U.S. stocks endured another brutal day, with major indexes each dropping approximately 6%.

The broad-based S&P 500 closed down 6%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 5.8%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 2,200 points, or about 5.5%.

The Russell 2000 Index, which tracks the stocks of smaller U.S. companies, dropped by 4%.

It’s the second straight day of turmoil on trading floors, adding to weeks of declines. On Thursday, the S&P had its worst day since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Nasdaq Composite is now down 22% from its high in December, and the S&P 500 is about 17% off its high in February.

A judge has ordered the case of a Tufts University doctoral student from Turkey who was detained by immigration authorities, sparking outrage in Massachusetts, be moved to federal court in Vermont, rather than keep the case in Massachusetts or move it to Louisiana, where she's been in custody.

Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was taken into custody as she walked along a street in Somerville on March 25. After being transported to New Hampshire and then Vermont, she was put on a plane the next day and moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Basile, Louisiana.

Read the full story from NBC10 Boston here

A federal judge said Friday the government must secure the return of a Prince George’s County, Maryland, man who Immigration and Customs Enforcement admitted it deported in error.

More than three weeks after Kilmar Abrego Garcia was detained and flown to a notorious prison in El Salvador, U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis ordered that the government return him to the U.S. by the end of the day Monday.

“We concede the facts. The plaintiff should not have been removed,” a Justice Department lawyer said in court in Greenbelt.

Read the full story from NBC Washington here

U.S. stocks are weathering another brutal day, with major indexes each dropping more than 5%.

The broad-based S&P 500 had fallen 5.5% as of Friday afternoon. The tech-heavy Nasdaq also dropped 5.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 2,000 points, or about 5.1%.

The Russell 2000 Index, which tracks the stocks of smaller U.S. companies, dropped by 4.6%.

U.S. stock markets slid into a steady decline after a brief morning bounce, with major indexes deepening already-considerable losses.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is down 5.2%, followed closely by the broad S&P 500 at 5.1%. The 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost more than 1,800 points, about 4.6%

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies is down 5.3%

President Donald Trump on Friday said he will extend the deadline for TikTok to find a U.S. buyer or face a ban, giving the China-based owner ByteDance an additional 75 days to reach a deal.

"My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress," he wrote in a TruthSocial post. "The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days."

Read the full story from NBC News here

Aside from climate change and pollution, penguins are now facing one more threat from humanity: Trump’s tariffs.

Trump on Wednesday announced expansive tariffs on more than 180 countries and regions to retaliate against what he characterized as unfair trade practices by other countries.

While Vladimir Putin’s Russia was left out of the long list, Trump slapped 10% tariffs on Heard Island and McDonald Islands, a mostly barren, tiny outpost largely populated by penguins.

Read the full story here.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is asking California's long-standing trading partners to exclude his state's products from their retaliatory measures they they react to Trump's sweeping new tariffs by hiking their own.

"California is not Washington, D.C.,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in an announcement on his request.

"California leads the nation as the #1 state for agriculture and manufacturing — and it’s our workers, families, and farmers who stand to lose the most from this Trump tax hike and trade war," Newsom said in the release. "To our international partners: As the fifth largest economy in the world, the Golden State will remain a steady, reliable partner for generations to come, no matter the turbulence coming out of Washington."

Newsom argued Trump's imposition of high tariffs will ultimately lead to higher priced products, meaning consumers will be forced to foot the bill.

AP Photo/Richard Drew

Nintendo his hitting reset on Switch 2 preorders in the United States.

The Japanese video game giant said it would no longer take preorders on its new video game console from U.S. buyers on Wednesday, citing "the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions."

Nintendo said an update on timing would come at a later date, and that it still plans to launch the console June 5.

The company just revealed details of the hotly anticipated Switch 2 two days ago, saying it would sell for $449.99. That same day, Trump revealed he would hit Japanese imports with a 24% tariff.

The monthly jobs report is released on the first Friday of every month. Here is what you need to know.

Here's a breakdown of how yesterday's stock market decline compares to the worst S&P 500 and Nasdaq drops over the last decade.

The major U.S. stock indexes dropped sharply just minutes into Friday trading as President Donald Trump’s historic tariffs announcement — and fresh retaliatory duties imposed by China — sent further shockwaves through the global economy.

The S&P 500 fell more than 2%, deeping a decline that began in February. The index, which tracks 500 of the leading U.S. companies, is now down almost 14% from its peak.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq was down even further, sliding about 3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,000 points, or about 2.5%.

It’s shaping up to be a second-straight rough day for markets. On Thursday, the S&P 500 had its worst day since the early days of the Covid pandemic.

Major sell-offs in markets across the globe preceded the U.S. declines. European stocks veered toward a correction, having now declined 10% from recent highs. Asian markets also cratered.

Job growth was stronger than expected in March, providing at least temporary reassurance that the labor market is stable, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 228,000 for the month, up from the revised 117,000 in February and better than the Dow Jones estimate for 140,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, the unemployment rate moved up to 4.2%, higher than the 4.1% forecast as the labor force participation rate also increased.

Read the full story here.

Trump expressed public support for Marine Le Pen, a far-right French politician who was convicted of embezzlement earlier this week and sentenced to four years in prison.

The conviction also means a five-year ban from public office for Le Pen, who was seen as a front-runner in the 2027 French presidential election and whose anti-immigration and other policies have drawn comparisons to Trump.

“The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent, this time going so far as to put that Opponent in prison,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. “It is the same ‘playbook’ that was used against me.”

“FREE MARINE LE PEN!” he added.

Read the full NBC News story here.

As countries are reacting to Trump's announcements on tariffs, American consumers are bracing for a potential price hike in several products and goods.

NBC News' Tom Llamas talks to CNBC's Sharon Epperson about what to buy, or not buy, before prices go up.

Getty Images

China announced a 34% tariff on all U.S. imports on Friday, escalating trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.

The move came two days after Trump imposed the same tariff on all Chinese imports as part of what he called reciprocal tariffs on a long list of U.S. trade partners.

Combined with 20% in other tariffs Trump has imposed on Chinese goods since returning to office in January, the total U.S. tariff on some Chinese goods is at least 54%.

Read the full NBC News story here.

The fallout from Trump’s aggressive new tariffs has spurred Congress into action, with a growing number of Republicans joining Democrats to express interest in using their power to restrain him.

After the GOP-led Senate delivered a rare rebuke to Trump on Wednesday by voting to undo his tariffs on Canada, lawmakers in both chambers are weighing additional steps to rein him in. Senators are eyeing other mechanisms to rescind Trump’s existing tariffs while limiting his ability to impose new ones. And Democrats in the House are exploring ways to force a vote to revoke Canadian tariffs, putting out feelers to attract support from Republicans.

These efforts have a high bar for success as any resolution to undo Trump’s tariffs, or new law affecting his powers, would have to get around a presidential veto. But the level of support in Congress could affect the president’s political calculus around using taxes on imports to the U.S. as a centerpiece of his agenda.

Read the full NBC News story here.

Trump defended his tariffs to reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday, characterizing his decision to place penalties on imports from more than 180 countries and territories as a negotiating tactic to spur U.S. investments and aid in important business decisions, including the sale of TikTok.

“We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say, ‘We’ll approve a deal, but will you do something on the tariff?’ The tariffs give us great power to negotiate,” Trump said.

Trump signed an order in January giving TikTok’s Chinese-based owner, ByteDance, until Saturday to sell the platform to a non-Chinese buyer or face a nationwide ban.

Trump told reporters today that “we’re very close to a deal” on TikTok. It is unclear whether Chinese officials have tried to tie the platform to tariffs amid the negotiations over its ownership.

A conservative legal group has filed what it says is the first lawsuit aimed at blocking U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports, accusing Trump of exceeding his authority.

The lawsuit, filed yesterday in a Florida federal court by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, challenges Trump’s authority to impose the sweeping tariffs he announced on Wednesday as well as earlier tariffs he imposed on China under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

“By invoking emergency power to impose an across-the-board tariff on imports from China that the statute does not authorize, President Trump has misused that power, usurped Congress’s right to control tariffs, and upset the Constitution’s separation of powers,” Andrew Morris, the group’s senior litigation counsel, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of Florida-based retailer Simplified.

The 34% tariff on China that Trump announced Wednesday comes on top of two earlier 10% tariffs, bringing the combined total to at least 54%.

European stocks continued to drop shortly after the market open today, albeit at a much slower rate than yesterday’s huge losses, as investors around the world continue to reassess their trades in the wake of the Trump administration’s announcement of sweeping global tariffs. 

The Stoxx Europe 600 — an index of the largest European companies — slipped 0.9%, while the main indexes in Germany, France and the U.K. also fell less than 1%. 

In the Asia-Pacific, Japan’s Nikkei 225 led declines in the region, closing the week down 9% for its sharpest drop in more than five years, according to Reuters. Markets in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan were closed for a holiday.

The banking sector is in European traders’ sights this morning, with a basket of financial stocks down 2.8%. Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and Barclays all experienced steep drops of as much as 4%. 

That’s in part because traders are now expecting lower economic growth following the tariff announcements. That may also lead to interest rate cuts from central banks, which would lower the amount commercial banks can charge customers for holding their money, as well as encourage people to borrow and spend rather than hold their money in banks.