"Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Ryland Barton.
The Pentagon says the Iran War has cost $25 billion so far, and PR's Quill Lawrence
“reports Secretary of Defense Pete Higgs F. testified today on Capitol Hill."”
Higgs F. was defending the administration's proposed $1.45 trillion defense budget with a focus on rebuilding U.S. military industry. But it's the first time he's appeared under oath since the Iran War started, and Democrat out of Smith asked why President Trump ordered the attack after claiming to have destroyed Iran's nuclear weapons program last year.
"Well, their nuclear facilities have been obliterated, underground, they're buried, and we'll watch you." "Well, we'll watch you." "We had to start this war. You just said, 60 days ago, because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat.
Now you're saying that it was completely obliterated." "They had not given up their nuclear ambitions." Higgs F. said the biggest adversaries are Democrats and some Republicans who are criticizing the war. Quill Lawrence and PR News
“Florida Republicans gave a boost to President Trump's national redistricting drive to”
shape the midterm elections today from member station WFSU Tristan Wood reports the legislature approved new voting maps that could flip four congressional seats now held by Democrats. It still needs his signature, but Republican Governor Ron DeSantis's office drew the map that divides Democratic votes in Central and South Florida. The Santicis has Florida's population growth requires redistricting, but also indicated
it would create four new Republican-leaning districts. Democratic Florida State Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith said the motivation for the redraw his partisanship. This map is clearly designed to entrench power rather than reflect the will of the people. The maps passage came just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the voting rights
act in a Louisiana redistricting case. The Santicis predicted that would help Florida's redistricting hold up in court. For NPR News, I'm Tristan Wood in Tallahassee, Florida. With the British King and Queen visiting the U.S. this week, officials on both sides of the Atlantic have been playing up the special relationship between the U.S. and Britain,
but as NPR's Lauren Fraer reports, some embarrassing comments have emerged from Britain's Ambassador to Washington. In audio leak to the financial times newspaper Ambassador Christian Turner tells a group of British
“students visiting Washington that if America has any special relationship, "I think that”
it's probably one country." It's probably with Israel, and he calls it extraordinary that the Jeffrey Epstein scandal "hasn't touched anybody in the U.S. while it has "right to the top of the British system." In the audio, which is from February, Turner mentions the King's brother Andrew and his own predecessor as Ambassador Peter Mandelson, both fired from official roles over ties
to the late sex offender, and he says questions over Mandelson's appointment might still bring down the British Prime Minister, Lauren Fraer and PR News London. And from Washington, this is NPR News. The Trump administration is proposing cutting the EPA's budget by roughly half, sparking heated congressional hearings this week.
Democrats accuse the agency of abandoning its mission to protect the environment in public health, EPA Administrator Lee Zelden says the EPA can still enforce laws while cutting funding and regulations. A new survey finds that a majority of workers expect layoffs in the near future due to AI taking over jobs, and PR's reto-chattergy reports a majority also say they feel more comfortable
turning to AI chat bots for mental health concerns than their HR department. The survey was conducted by Modern Health Workplace Mental Health Company, respondents reported growing stresses affecting employment health with only one-third saying that their well-being
is valued by their employer, more than 70 percent said their employer pushes productivity
at the cost of employee wellness. Despite a majority reporting adequate mental health coverage, half of the respondents said they don't use employer-provided mental health days for fear of being judged. More than 2/3 say that the country's political environment is affecting their emotional well-being at work and that political anxiety increases workplace burnout, free-to-touching
and PR news. A barge carrying a stranded humpback whale named Timmy has begun its journey toward the North Sea. The whale was spotted near Germany's Baltic Sea coast in March, far from its Atlantic Ocean habitat.
It repeatedly became stranded in shallow waters, but now rescuers are using a flooded barge to move the whale, German officials described the operation as unprecedented and successful. This is NPR News. Every day NPR reports stories that keep you informed without fear or favor.
That's the promise of a free press in a democracy.
It's in the first amendment.
I'm Tom Bowman and I cover the Pentagon for NPR. Stand up for independent news coverage today by donating early for public media giving days, coming up on May 1st and 2nd, give now at donate.npr.org.
