NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-03-2026 3PM EDT

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. A U.S. official says one crew member has been rescued from an F-15 jet shot down over Iran, and the search for a second crew member continues. This is Iran put out a televised call for people in the area to search for foreign pilots and detain them. The White House says President Trump has been brief, though he hasn't spoken about the situation yet. It's the first time America has lost a military aircraft in Iranian territory during this war. that started more than five weeks ago. And President Trump says the U.S. has destroyed one of Iran's largest bridges. And Pears Emily Fang has more. The B1 bridge west of the capital Tehran, connecting it to the city of Karaj was under construction when it was hit in an attack that Iran's IRGC security forces said killed eight people. The IRGC threatened to hit major bridges in the Middle East in retaliation. Trump has threatened the U.S. will hit more civilian infrastructure, including power plants in Iran by next week if Iran does not open the straight of her moves. And peers Emily Fang reporting.

Republican Congresswoman Nancy May says former Attorney General Pam Bondi still has to testify before the House Oversight Committee later this month over how she handled files related to the late convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. I'm not going to have my arm twisted on this. She was subpoenaed. She is required by law to show up to the Oversight Committee. and I will do everything that I can to work behind the scenes to ensure that that happens. Just because she's fired doesn't mean this goes away.

Speaking there to NPR's here and now, President Trump removed Bondi from her job yesterday and his former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, has been named as acting Attorney General. May says she's also concerned about comments Blanche made to Fox News, saying the Epstein files shouldn't be part of anything going forward. President Trump is expected to sign an executive order to pay all DHS employees, as Congress remains deadlocked over funding the agency. And Pierce-Winzer-Johnston reports. Airline analysts say wait times have improved since Trump took executive action to begin paying TSA agents after more than a month. But the recovery is uneven.

Hundreds of officers resign during the partial shutdown, and it can take months to train replacements. Airline analyst Henry Hartfeld says that uncertainty could quickly affect operations. This is a day-to-day situation. If the back pay isn't fully repaid and if the TSA workers are concerned that they won't be paid for work they do now, that we're going to start seeing absenteeism increase again. That can lead to inconsistent staffing levels at airports making wait times harder to predict. Windsor Johnston, NPR News, Washington. Wall Street's closed today in observance of the Good Friday holiday. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. NASA's Artemis II astronauts fired their engines and they're headed toward the moon.

The trans-luner ignition comes 25 hours after liftoff, putting the three Americans and one Canadian, on course for a lunar fly-around early next week. There are Orion capsule bolted out of orbit around Earth, and it's now on its way to the moon, which is nearly 250,000 miles away. It's the first engine firing for a moon crew since Apollo 17 set out on that era's final moonshot in 1972. NASA had the Artemis 2 crew test their capsule's life support systems before clearing them for a lunar departure. Taxes on sugary drinks aren't effective in reducing consumption in fast food restaurants, according to a new study in the journal Plus Medicine. And Pierce Allison Aubrey reports, researchers analyze data from a major taco

Bell fast food locations. Researchers studied several years of transactions from Taco Bells, including from drive-thrus in Chicago, Oakland, California, Philadelphia, and Seattle. These are all places that had adopted soda taxes aimed at reducing sugar consumption and encouraging healthier habits. But the study finds that the small tax on soda did not appear to influence decision-making. Other studies show that a soda tax can lead to decreased sales in grocery stores, but the doesn't seem to be the case in fast food. Researchers say it's possible the tax is too low for consumers to notice.

Alison Aubrey, NPR News. And I'm Janine Hurst, NPR News in Washington.