NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-03-2025 12AM EDT

Episode Date: May 3, 2025

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This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now, with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what. To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman. The White House has released its first budget proposal

of President Trump's second term. It's an incomplete budget outline known as a skinny budget. But as NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben reports, it still shows that Trump wants to make further drastic cuts to governments. The White House budget proposal includes sharp cuts to an array of agencies, like the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation,

and the Internal Revenue Service. The proposal would match those non-defense cuts with increases to defense spending. All told, the White House proposes increasing defense spending by 13 percent, as well as a 65 percent increase in spending on homeland security. That money would go in part towards mass deportations as well as completing the border wall. The president's budget is only a proposal. Congress passes spending bills.

However, Trump has shown he's willing to act unilaterally via executive orders at his Department of Government deficiency. Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News. The Trump administration says it's reorganizing the Environmental Protection Agency and cutting staffing to Reagan-era levels. Administrator Lee Zeldin released a statement saying the move will save about $300 million

a year. Most hit by the cuts will be the office that provides scientific analysis for policymakers on the risks of air pollution, chemicals and other environmental dangers. Australians are heading to the polls this weekend and as Rachel Bonjorno reports, the Conservative opposition leader Peter Dutton has fallen behind in the polls in his bid for Prime Minister, in part because of a backlash against some policies reminiscent of President Trump. Dutton began his federal election campaign with a string of familiar policies including vowing to sack a significant number of public servants, curbing working from home, cracking

down on so-called woke agendas in schools and creating a Department of Government Efficiency headed by a minister who wants to quote, make Australia great again. But in the wake of Trump's drop in popularity in recent polling, Dutton has backflipped on a number of those policies and tried to distance himself from nicknames such as Timu Trump, a nod to the Chinese company known for cheap imitations. Prime Minister Albanese seeks to expand public health care, address climate change and the rising cost of living, which is a key concern for voters. For NPR News, I'm Rachel Buongiorno in Melbourne.

Eight officials say a shipment of supplies heading to Gaza was attacked on Friday. The shipment was on board a ship sailing in international waters off Malta when the attack occurred. The officials say everyone on the ship is safe and no serious injuries were reported. The organization Freedom Flotilla Coalition says Israel is behind the attack, but officials did not offer any evidence Stocks finished up on Wall Street to end out the week the Dow Jones gained 564 points the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 266 points and the S&P 500 was up by 82 points You're listening to NPR news

You're listening to NPR News. United Airlines says it will begin canceling 35 flights a day at its hub in Newark, New Jersey. Government equipment failures and staffing problems with air traffic control at the airport have caused the airline to delay, cancel, or divert hundreds of flights this past week. The FAA is currently about 3,500 air traffic controllers short of its targeted staffing. One of Rome's most popular dishes is notoriously hard to cook, but as NPR's Emily Kwong tells us, scientists have written up a foolproof recipe. The dish at the center of this research is cacio e pepe. You know what I'm talking about.

It's the one that's a symphonic combination of pasta, black pepper, and Pecorino Romano cheese. Now, when cooking, heat can cause the proteins in the cheese to clump together. So for generations, home cooks have added cornstarch or potato starch to the water first. In Italian kitchens, grandma had somehow, you know, always a scientific attitude, right? So they were doing scientific methods. Giacomo Bartolucci and his team sought to formalize what he calls grandma knowledge through science.

In the journal Physics of Fluids, they report that the ideal ratio of cheese to starch is 2.5%. So, all you need to know is that before adding 160 grams of Pecorino cheese, first dissolve 4 grams of starch into your pasta water. Emily Kwong, NPR News. Microsoft is raising the retail price for its Xbox consoles and controllers. The Xbox Series S will cost $80 more in the U.S. Similar increases will be seen in Europe, the UK, and Australia. The price increases come as the Trump administration tariff policies continue to create uncertainty

for many businesses. I'm Dale Willman, NPR News. You want to follow what's happening in Washington, D.C., but you don't want to be scrolling your I'm Dale Willman, NPR News.