NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-01-2025 2PM EDT

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

NPR News: 05-01-2025 2PM EDTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is directing the Army to focus on defending the homeland and deterring China by cutting helicopters and armored vehicles and focusing on more futuristic programs. NPR's Tom Bowman has more. Hegseth wants the Army to make some of the cuts and purchases by the end of next year and others by 2027, when China is expected to have the capability to attack Taiwan. The plan calls for more army deployments to the Pacific region and cutting what Hexas says are outdated armor and aviation units in the active force,

as well as the garden reserve. The memo says the army must accelerate war-winning capabilities by fielding long-range missiles and placing advanced drones and counter drone equipment in every division. Tom Bowman, NPR News. The White House says its new Minerals Deal with Ukraine creates a fund governed by three board members from each country where each country will receive half of royalties, license fees and other proceeds from national resource projects in Ukraine speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity a senior administration official says the

agreement also includes oil and gas the official says quote it sends a strong message to Russia the United States has skin in the game and is committed to Ukraine's long-term success end Rapper and record executive Sean Diddy Combs' sex trafficking and racketeering trial begins Monday in Manhattan federal court. A hearing was scheduled this afternoon to discuss the process of selecting the jury that will decide whether to acquit or convict the hip-hop mogul of charges that could land him in prison for life. The Trump administration says it will stop paying out

$1 billion in federal grants. The money approved by Congress was meant to help school districts across the U.S. hire mental health professionals, including counselors and social workers. NPR's Corey Turner has the latest. In 2022, Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which included a billion dollars for schools to hire 14,000 mental health workers.

In a statement, the Education Department says, quote, recipients used the funding to implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas in ways that have nothing to do with mental health. So the department is telling districts it will not continue dispersing the money. Mary Wall, who oversaw K-12 policy during the Biden administration, tells NPR the focus of the grants was absolutely on providing evidence-based mental health support to students. And any suggestion that this is a DEI program is a distraction. Corey Turner, NPR News.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up more than 200 points, roughly half a percent, at 40,873. The Nasdaq has risen more than 2 percent, up 351 points. And the S&P is up more than 1 percent. This is NPR. A day after the U.S. government reported the economy shrank during the first three months of the year, NPR's Scott Horsley looks at what may be coming in the second quarter. The first quarter was all about people bracing for the president's trade war.

April, which marks the start of the second quarter, is when those tariffs really started to bite. And that has rattled financial markets. It's also made consumers nervous that prices are going to go up. Consumer spending has not dried up, but Chief Economist Greg Daco of EY Parthenon says people are being more careful about their spending, especially when it comes to things like eating out. However, NPR's Scott Horsley reports a jobs market has been resilient. The monthly employment report for April comes out tomorrow. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called

on Indian and Pakistani officials to defuse tensions at Flaired. After a militant attack last week killed 26 Indian tourists, mostly Hindu men, in Indian-controlled Kashmir. And Piyarz Di-Hadid has more. Piyarz Di-Hadid, PNBC News, PNBC News India blames Pakistan and has vowed to retaliate. Pakistan denies any connection to the attack and says it will strike back if targeted. A former leader of Pakistani-held Kashmir, Sardar Atik Ahmad Khan, says residents are fleeing amid daily exchanges of gunfire across the line that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan. Analysts like Milan Vaishnav of the Carnegie Endowment says the Indian

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is under pressure to strike Pakistan. The nature of this attack makes it politically difficult for Modi not to respond militarily. Diya Hadid, NPR News, Mumbai. It's NPR.