Lye from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh.
The latest big jobs numbers are far beyond the growth economists expected for the month
“of May 172,000 added to payrolls, double the projections according to today's labor market”
report. However, purchasing power is still tight and while the unemployment rate remains low at 4.3% in the economy, such as Diane Swach, note, long-term unemployment spanning several months to still a major concern. We also see new college grads still having a very elevated level of unemployment.
In fact, the most recent data we have for April suggests that they're running at an unemployment rate that's consistent with sort of 2015, which was still struggling to emerge from the global financial crisis.
More than 4 million Americans have lost food assistance benefits from the SNAP program since
last year, and PR's Maria Gadoi reports agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins face tough questioning on Capitol Hill today. Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee grilled Rollins about why so many people have lost access to a program that's a key safety net against hunger. Rollins said the drop is due to a better economy and a crackdown on fraud, but Ohio
Democratic Representative Shantel Brown pointed to a recent report showing that more than 700,000 children have lost SNAP benefits as a result of President Trump's one big beautiful bill act. Madam Secretary, millions of Americans are going hungry and you're saying it's a success story.
Rollins countered.
“I think that you want more people on government programs.”
Committee members also asked Rollins about rising farm input costs and the threat posed by screw worm.
Reya Gadoi and PR News 70 billion dollar immigration enforcement bill is a step closer
to being enacted, the U.S. Senate passed it overnight. Just a week after a Russian drone crashed into an apartment building in eastern Romania an armed drone has exploded in a Romanian port. Terry Schultz says there were no injuries or major damage reported. The Romanian Defense Ministry says the Naval drone self-detinated mid-morning after being
detected earlier by authorities who closed off the area in the civilian port of Constanta. While Romanian officials have not yet revealed whether the drone was Russian or Ukrainian, they did confirm it was not one of their own and described it as being of the type used in the war in Ukraine.
“Romanian President Nikosar Don was on his way to a European union summit with the incident”
occurred and he wrote on X that, quote, "such particularly serious situations are the direct consequences of the war of aggression unleashed by Russia against Ukraine." EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen echoed that expressing solidarity with Romania and saying Europe urgently needs more anti-droned capabilities for MPR News, I'm Terry Schultz and Brussels.
This is NPR News. Under the threat of more cross-border missile and drone strikes exchange with Ukraine, Russia is hosting a major economic forum in St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is willing to address the event today. NPR's Charles Mains reports on how the U.S. has shown up, given President Trump's repeated attempts to mediate negotiations for ending
the year's long war in Eastern Europe. "The Trump administration is present in a way. I was watching Rodney Cook, who's overseeing Trump's White House Ballroom Project and currently heads the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, take part in a cultural roundtable among all these official delegations from about 130 countries. So you also find American far-right influencers. You also see representatives from Europe's
far-right including Germany's AFD party." NPR's Charles Mains reporting, researchers say a newer kind of gene editing could be safer for editing the DNA in human embryos, NPR's Rob Stein with Detail. "The researchers used a gene editing technique called base editing to try to edit two genes in early human embryos. In a scientific paper posted online, the researchers report that
the approach appears to be more accurate and produce fewer unintended genetic changes than an older form of gene editing known as CRISPR. The researchers stress, however, that it still remains far from clear whether base editing human embryos would be safe. Some scientists hope gene editing human embryos could someday prevent devastating genetic diseases. But many researchers and bioethicists fear it would be too dangerous and could lead to designer
babies." It's NPR. It's June and another big week in the run-up to the midterms, primaries and half a dozen states including California where new congressional maps are in place and a chaotic race for governor is wide open. We're also following gas prices and Iran. So far, talk of a
peace deal is just talk. We'll keep you posted. Listen, every morning, up first on the NPR app
