NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-04-2025 2AM EDT

Episode Date: May 4, 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. President Trump this weekend released his first budget

of this term. The draft lays out how the government would spend money if Congress agrees to his plan. NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben says he's proposing major cuts to non-defense spending. He proposes cuts of more than 50% at the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation.

He also proposes cuts at the Internal Revenue Service, at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. I mean, really, if it's an agency that doesn't do immigration or defense, there's a good chance that Trump wants to cut it. He also proposes some cuts to education, although the administration did take care to specify that they don't propose cutting Head Start funding. Trump's budget, meanwhile, is proposing a major increase in defense spending, boosting the Pentagon's coffers by 13 percent to $1 trillion a year.

Scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health can no longer hire researchers and labs in other countries. NPR's Jonathan Lambert has more. When a U.S. researcher gets an NIH grant, they can direct some of those funds to researchers in other countries where it makes more sense to study certain conditions. Approximately $500 million of NIH's $47 billion budget falls into this bucket. It funds a wide range of research, from vaccine trials on tuberculosis to cancer studies. Now the NIH is stopping those kinds of grants. Instead, the agency will require

foreign labs to apply directly for funding, a change it says is necessary for national security. Scientists say the move could drastically reduce research on diseases that aren't currently common in the U.S., but still pose a threat, such as malaria and untreated AIDS. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News. A UN envoy is condemning the intense wave of Israeli strikes on Syria. Israel says its forces are on the ground in that country to protect the Druze minority sect which has been involved in days of clashes with Syrian pro-government gunmen. NPR's Jane Ar Araf has more on that story. Syria's state news agency says Israel carried out attacks in the countryside of Damascus

and in Hamamah province. The Israeli military said it bombed what it called military sites. The attacks followed an Israeli airstrike near the Syrian presidential palace in Damascus this week, which Israel said was a warning not to harm the Druze minority. Druze are also present in Israel, where they serve in the army. Clashes involving Druze militias, tribal fighters, and Syrian government forces killed dozens of people this week.

Druze leaders are divided over whether to integrate their militias with Syrian government forces. Jane Araf, NPR News, I'm on. The land around Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket company is about to become an official Texas city. A small group of voters who live in the area approved a plan to name the community Starbase. That's also the name of the launch site for the SpaceX rocket program. You're listening to NPR News. An Israeli blockade of supplies for Gaza is entering its third month, and health officials

in Gaza say it's taking a toll on children's health. They say some 3,600 children have been treated for acute malnutrition over the past month, and those numbers are likely increasing. The shortage of food and supplies has pushed more people in the region toward starvation and parents are running out of options for feeding their children. A new study finds that more Americans have been receiving outpatient talk therapy in recent years while fewer are relying only on psychiatric medications and Piers Ritter-Chatterjee reports. From 2018 to 2021 the number of Americans receiving psychotherapy or talk therapy grew from about 16 million to 22 million.

Dr. Mark Olson is a psychiatrist and epidemiologist at Columbia University. This increase represents a period where psychotherapy is assuming a more important role in outpatient mental health care. While a majority of people in therapy also used antidepressants or other psychiatric medications, the number of people using only medication declined during this time, especially among people getting treatment for trauma and stress-related disorders. The findings are published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Reetu Chatterjee, NPR News.

Sovereignty pulled away down the stretch on Saturday to win the 151st running of the Kentucky Derby. 3-1 favorite journalism was even with sovereignty until Jockey Jr. Alvarado urged sovereignty on for the win in a time of 2 minutes 2.31 seconds. Journalism finished in second with Beza coming in third. I'm Dale Willman, and PR News. You want to follow what's happening in Washington, D.C., but you don't want to be scrolling Coming in third. I'm Dale Willman, NPR News.