NPR News Now - NPR News: 06-01-2025 8AM EDT

Episode Date: June 1, 2025

NPR News: 06-01-2025 8AM EDTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The news can feel like a lot on any given day, but you can't just ignore it when big, even world-changing events are happening. That's where the Up First podcast comes in. Every morning and under 15 minutes, we take the news and pick three essential stories so you can keep up without getting stressed out. Listen now to the Up First podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Giles Snyder. At least seven people are dead, 71 injured after a bridge exploded and collapsed in Russia, derailing a passenger train passing below. Then another Russian bridge blew up overnight from Moscow NPR's Charles Maynes reports. The first bridge collapsed as a packed passenger train was passing underneath in Russia's

Bryansk region overnight, causing debris and several trucks to fall into the train carriages below. Images shared on social media showed stunned passengers trying to climb out of the wreckage in the dark. Meanwhile, a separate rail bridge collapsed in the neighboring Kursk region several hours later derailing a freight train and injuring the driver. Russia's investigative committee said it was investigating both incidents as potential acts of terrorism and several prominent Russian politicians were quick to blame Ukraine.

The incidents come ahead of plans for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul Monday. Charles Mainz in PR News, Moscow. In Gaza, health officials say at least 31 people were killed, more than 200 wounded near a food distribution site run by a US-based group in the southern city of Ra'a. Hamas and witnesses are accusing Israeli forces of opening fire. Voters in Poland choosing a new president today in a runoff election. Terri Schulz reports President Trump supports one of the candidates. The outcome of this runoff election for Poland's president could have a significant impact on the country's relationship with the European Union. Trump hosted nationalist conservative candidate Karl Nowarski at the White House and suggested closer U.S. Poland military

ties could be in store if he's elected over liberal Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski. Trzaskowski is a close ally of pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose policy aims are often at odds with outgoing President Andrzej Duda, a member of the Nationalist Law and Justice Party supporting candidate Nowarski and a fellow EU skeptic. The president has the right to block legislation, and Duda has used that power frequently against Tusk's efforts to liberalize Poland after government rule by the right-wing Law and Justice Party from 2015 to 2023. For NPR News, I'm Terri Schulz in Brussels. The Trump administration has published a new plan.

It says it will make the federal hiring process more efficient and merit-based. NPR's Andrea Hsu reports the plan was released even as a hiring freeze remains largely in place through July. The plan emphasizes recruiting candidates the administration sees as patriotic. It includes a questionnaire for most job applicants

that asks about their commitment to the Constitution, how they would improve government efficiency, and how they'd help advance President Trump's executive orders. The plan also takes aim at efforts by previous administrations to diversify the workforce. It calls on agencies to stop using statistics on race, sex, ethnicity,

or the concept of underrepresentation in any personnel decisions and to stop disseminating such data. The government says it will focus recruiting efforts at state universities, religious colleges, community colleges, and homeschooling groups, among other places. Andrea Hsu, NPR News. This is NPR. President Trump says he's withdrawing his nominee to lead NASA. Trump named tech billionaire Jared Isaacman in December, but in a social media post last night Trump said he will announce a new candidate soon.

It's not clear what led to the decision. Isaacman is an ally of Elon Musk, who last week officially left his government role as a head of Trump's controversial cost-cutting organization known as DOGE. China, denouncing remarks made this weekend by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, China's foreign ministry, accusing Hegseth of promoting a Cold War mentality after he told the annual Shangri-La Security Conference in Singapore that the threat posed by China is real and imminent.

China says Hegseth's Commons were intended to sow division. Twenty-five years ago, a road construction project near Gray, Tennessee, led to the discovery of ancient bones. Chad Barrett with the member station WETS says more on how this became an important site in eastern North America. The Gray Fossil Site was discovered in the year 2000 when cutting through a hill close to State Route 75. Director Blaine Schubert says the road crew started to discover this clay and it was actually the fact that the clay wasn't good to build a road on that first stopped them.

And then they realized there were bones in it. Schubert says the gray fossil site is a really rare and unique snapshot into the past about five million years they have. Everything from red pandas and rhinos to tapirs that were all living around this sinkhole pond. Over 100 species of ancient animals have been found so far at the Gray Fossil Site including the recent discovery of a giant flying swirl. For NPR News, I'm Chad Barrett in Johnson City, Tennessee. And I'm Joel Snyder. This is NPR News.