Trump’s tariffs on electronics; Meta antitrust case : NPR

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Today’s top stories

The Trump administration on Friday outlined a substantial carve-out for mobile phonescomputers and other electronics from the sweeping global tariffs. The updated guidance for President Trump’s tariffs will apply across dozens of countries, including China, which currently has 145% levies.

• 🎧 Electronics account for roughly a quarter of Chinese exports to the U.S.NPR’s John Ruwitch tells Up First. China’s commerce ministry said the decision to remove tariffs on these products was a small step toward correcting the error of imposing “reciprocal tariffs.” However, Trump plans to lump electronics in with semiconductors in a separate tariff he says he will announce in the next month or two. The idea is to force supply chains to return to the U.S. Trump seems to be waiting for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to pick up the phone and call, but that’s not how China operates, Ruwitch says.

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele is expected to meet with Trump at the White House today. Bukele has called himself the “world’s coolest dictator” and dismissed criticisms from human rights groups for putting thousands of people in prison without due process. Bukele received about $6 million in a deal with the Trump administration to imprison hundreds of people who were accused of being gang members and deported from the U.S. The deportations are facing legal challenges.

• 🎧 During the visit, both sides might discuss how to expand their partnershipincluding the possibility of incarcerating some U.S. prisoners in El Salvador, freelance reporter Manuel Rueda says. El Salvador used to be one the most violent countries in the world. In 2022, Bukele declared a state of emergency that’s still ongoing, which gave police the power to arrest anyone suspected of being a gang member and lock them up without due process. Now, the concern is that people who are sent from the U.S. to El Salvador will get the same treatment as local prisoners and disappear into the system.

The Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust case against Meta starts today. It’s considered the most significant legal challenge that the social media giant faces. The case, which is expected to last two months, centers around whether Meta broke competition laws when it acquired Instagram and WhatsApp. Executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerburg, are set to take the witness stand.

• 🎧 The FTC says when Meta acquired Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, it was part of a strategy to eliminate competition and maintain monopoly over the social media market, NPR’s Joel Rose explains. The FTC is pushing for Instagram and WhatsApp to be broken up into separate companiesallowing smaller social media companies to compete for consumers and ad dollars. Meta says it is being punished for being an innovative and aggressive tech company and that it competed fairly. Lawyers for Meta said in a court filing that regulators approved the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions at the time, and it’s unreasonable to try to unwind the deals years later.

Living better

Living Better is a special series about what it takes to stay healthy in America.

It can be easy to get lost in your phone, especially when you are tired and stressed and need an escape. But scanning through news headlines or arguments on social media may stress you out. Using social media can feel good in the short term because it activates the brain’s reward pathways and releases dopamine. However, once that spike subsides, you could be left feeling bad again, prompting you to go back for more. Instead of using cellphones as a mood booster, there are ways to retrain your brain to crave physical activity.

• 🏃‍♀️Take a pause when you notice the urge to grab your phone to scroll. Observe what happens to that sensation if you don’t act on it.
• 🏃‍♀️ Try adding in some movement when you want to use your phone. You could pick a song and have a dance session or do some squats and feel your muscles activate.
• 🏃‍♀️ Practice savoring the things you love about movement. This could be the peaceful feeling a stretch provides you or how relaxed your breathing is.
• 🏃‍♀️ Get flexible with your behavior and change up your routine. If you take the same walk every day, build in a surprise, like a new coffee shop or a sunset.

Picture show

Croquet teams from St. John’s College and the neighboring U.S. Naval Academy went head to head in their annual Annapolis Cup on April 5. The midshipmen dressed in pristine white uniforms. The Johnnies, who are notoriously secretive about their uniforms, arrived costumed as the tournament’s grass croquet courts, complete with mini wickets, mallets, balls and clips. The yearly competition began in the early 1980s. Legend says that a discussion between a St. John’s College student and the commandant of the Naval Academy led to the latter’s challenge that his midshipmen could beat Johnnies at any sport. Thousands attended the event, many in fancy dress and bowler hats.

3 things to know before you go

1. Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland won the 2025 Masters tournament yesterday. He’s the sixth golfer in history to achieve a career Grand Slam.
2. An art installation in Australia is using biological matter to rebuild some of the late composer Alvin Lucier’s brain, with his permission, to create and release new music.
3. Nobel Prize-winning Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa died yesterday at the age of 89. His career spanned decades. He published his first book, The Time of the Heroin 1962.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.