NPR News: 09-08-2026 8AM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Kurova Coleman. Canada imposed up to $20 billion in tariffs overnight on a variety of American products. Canada is retaliating for President Trump's tariffs on Canadian goods. The U.S. formerly participated in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, a free trade pact that was reached during Trump's first term in office. Christian Freeland is Canada's former finance minister. He helped negotiate the deal and says at the time both Trump and Canada agreed to protect blue collar workers. I do think we need to recalibrate global trade to protect blue collar manufacturing jobs in high-wage countries. The U.S. MCA, the deal that governs Canada U.S. trade, does that. It includes, and this was the first time a trade deal included a provision like this. It includes a provision that protects high-wage labor, particularly in the car sector. Former Canadian Finance Minister Christian Freeland, a Trump-backed super PAC has begun spending

1:05money in the toss-up Texas U.S. Senate race. NPR Stephen Fowler reports on the PAC's first spending of the general election. Trump's MAGA Inc, along with top Republican party-aligned committees, are sitting on massive piles of cash that they could spend to help shape the midterms. But over the summer, the question shifted from where they would spend it to if they would spend at all. Over the weekend, the super PAC disclosed its first spending, $10 million in Texas. That money is split between ads supporting Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxson and opposing Democrat James Tolerico, who has largely had the airwaves to himself for much of the summer in the tightly contested race. Stephen Fowler, NPR News. The leaders in New Hampshire are going to the polls today for the state's primary elections, candidates are running for state and federal offices. Elections officials across the U.S. and millions of voters are waiting for court rulings on a plan by the U.S. Postal Service to restrict mail-in voting for the midterm elections in

2:05November. NPR's Hanseela Wong says a federal judge is blocking sections of that plan for now. The Trump administration has asked both the Supreme Court and the first U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to clear the way for new requirements from the U.S. Postal Service for the president's attempt to limit mail-in voting. At this issue, as weather U.S.P.S. has the authority to refuse to deliver mail-in balance to voters in states where election officials do not turn over voter lists to the mailing agency and do not have certain barcodes in their ballot envelopes. We should note U.S.P.S. is a financial support of NPR. A federal judge extended a block on those requirements last week, after vying that U.S.P.S. has no authority to impose them on states. And a whistleblower report claims the Postal Service's systems for enforcing those requirements have not been properly tested and could derail mail-in voting for the midterm general election, which has already started in North Carolina. Hanseela Wong and Pyaar News You're listening to NPR. Federal safety officials say they have recovered the flight data recorders from the Amazon

3:05cargo plane that crashed Sunday at Miami's airport. They say the jet ran off the runway after landing and crashed into two vehicles. Five people on the ground were killed. The pilot survived. Every three years, a test called the program for International Student Assessment or PISA is given. It tells us how 15-year-olds around the globe are doing in subjects such as science, math, and reading. NPR's Janaki Metha reports the 2025 results are now out. The idea behind PISA is to see how students nearing the end of their school career are doing and applying their academics to real-world tasks. The good news for American students, they did better in science and reading than students in most other countries, though China and Singapore topped every subject. Compared with 2022, American students scores didn't change much other than a dip in reading skills. Girls did better than boys in reading, but boys scored higher on computational problem-solving and math.

4:05And the performance gap between high-performing and low-performing American students was much bigger than in other countries. Starting with this latest report, PISA will now happen every four years instead of three. Janaki Metha and Pair News Jury Selection starts today in New York for the Federal Racketeering Trial against Chinese tech firm Huawei. The US accuses Huawei of stealing technology, plotting to steal US trade secrets and fraud. The Chinese government says the US is using economic bullying. This is NPR. You count on sunscreen to protect your skin, but that SPF rating on the bottle might not be exactly as advertised. So you could measure an SPF 50 at one lab and an SPF 30 at another? On the Sunday Story, is it time to update sunscreen guidance? And now to the Sunday Story from the Up First Podcast on the NPR app.