NPR News Now - NPR News: 06-04-2025 3AM EDT

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

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This is Ira Glass with This American Life, each week on our show. We choose a theme, tell different stories on that theme. All right, I'm just going to stop right there. You're listening to an NPR podcast, chances are you know our show. So instead, I'm going to tell you, we've just been on a run of really good shows lately. Some big epic emotional stories, some weird funny stuff too. Download us, This American Life. funny stuff too, download us, This American Life. Live from NPR News, I'm Gile Snyder. White House spokeswoman, Caroline Levitz, as the Trump administration's trade representative is reminding U.S.

trading partners of a deadline today to submit proposals that might help them avoid what President Trump called his Liberation Day tariffs from taking effect next month. USTR sent this letter to all of our trading partners just to give them a friendly reminder that the deadline is coming up and they are in talks. Ambassador Greer, Secretary Besson, Secretary Lutnick are in talks with many of our key trading partners. The deadline for proposals hitting on the same day that it will get more expensive to import steel and aluminum. Trump announced a tariff hike to 50 percent last week and signed an executive order late

Tuesday evening. The White House is pushing for additional money to fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency despite repeated threats from the Trump administration to slash the agency. Here's NPR's Rebecca Herscher reporting. In new budget documents from the White House, the Trump administration requests more than $26 billion in funding for disaster relief. It's about $4 billion more than President Biden requested in his final budget. The increase comes at a time when the Trump administration is also moving to eliminate FEMA and move more disaster responsibility

to state governments. The president has said he does not think the disaster agency should exist in its current form, and he appointed a group of high-level federal officials, governors, and emergency experts to propose drastic changes to the agency. Rebecca Herscher, NPR News. President Trump has sent a formal request to Congress asking it to claw back more than

a billion dollars for public broadcasting that lawmakers already approved for the next two fiscal years. NPR's David Fokumflick reports this is Trump's latest effort to strip federal support from NPR and PBS. The money was just approved by the Republican-led Congress and Trump himself earlier this year. It predominantly goes to local stations, three quarters of which is for television, a quarter for radio. Some of that returns to NPR and PBS in the form of fees to run national shows. Without federal funds, many stations would have to face tough choices for going that

national programming, laying off journalists, or shutting down local shows. NPR and PBS are already suing the president over his attempt to order the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and local public media outlets to stop sending money to the networks. The president's new request to take back funds from public broadcasting is part of a larger package that Congress must pass within 45 days for it to take effect. David Folkenflick, NPR News. The rescission request also includes a take back of more than $8 billion allocated to USAID and other foreign aid programs.

Congress has 45 days to approve the request. Otherwise, federal law says money must be spent as Congress initially directed. This is NPR. The US-backed group distributing food aid in Gaza says its distribution centers are closed today. The move to shut down for 24 hours follows three deadly incidents over the past three days. Dozens of Palestinians on their way to seek aid were killed. The Israeli military is warning that routes leading to the sites are deemed to be combat zones.

Five United Nations staff members have been killed after their aid convoy was attacked on its way to Sudan's war-torn Darfur region. Kate Bartler reports that food supplies destroyed in the attack would have been the first to reach the besieged city of Al-Fajr in over a year. The UN said the convoy had consisted of 15 trucks, many of which were burnt while attempting to reach vulnerable families and children in quote, famine-impacted areas. The convoy had been on the way to the city of Al-Fasher when it was attacked on Monday near Al-Qauma.

The UN said its staff had been killed in, quote, the line of duty. Several others were injured. The statement did not say who was accountable for the attack. Sudan's army and a paramilitary group have been fighting a brutal civil war for more than two years, causing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. For NPR News, I'm Kate Butler in Johannesburg. Asian stocks rose in Wednesday trading, led by a surge in South Korea following the election victory of liberal presidential candidate, Lee Jae Myung. The focus of investors on trade negotiations today is a deadline for the U.S. to submit proposals for deals that might help them avoid Europe's President Trump's Liberation Day terror.

These days there is a lot of news. It could be hard to keep up with what it means for you, help them avoid Europe's President Trump's Liberation Day Terror.