NPR News: 04-03-2026 3AM EDT
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Live from NPR News, I'm Giles Snyder.
What recent changes occurred in the Justice Department?
Attorney General Pam Bondi is out at the Justice Department. President Trump made the announcement Thursday. NPR's Ryan Lucas.
In his social media post announcing this, Trump offered a couple of kind words for Bondi. He said she had done a tremendous job overseeing what he called a massive crackdown on crime. He said, quote, we love Pam. And he said she'll be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector. Those are his exact words. He didn't say what that would be, only that it would be announced later. And he also said that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch is going to step in as acting attorney general.
Bondi Zalster follows months of scrutiny over the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files. and Bondi's handling of cases against President Trump's perceived political enemies. Iran's state media have confirmed that an Iranian desalination plant hit earlier in the war is still fully out of service. Experts say that attacks on plants that create fresh water are becoming a weapon of war, as NPR's Julia Simon reports.
Desalination is the process of using electricity to separate seawater into a salty solution on one side and fresh water on the other across the Middle East. Countries rely heavily on the process. Qatar and Bahrain get more than 90 percent of their drinking water from it. As climate change increases the severity of droughts, experts see desalination plants as a key adaptation tool. Since the recent war began, strikes have hit plants in Iran as well as Kuwait and Bahrain. Earlier this week, President Trump wrote on social media that the U.S. may strike more Iranian desalination plants. Civilian infrastructure sites like water plants are banned as targets by international law. Julia Simon, NPR News.
The four-astronaut Artemis II crew on track for their lunar flyby by early next week. Their spacecraft left orbit Thursday after getting the OK to fire their capsule's engine. Astronauts on a 10-day mission, and from macaroni and cheese to butternut squash, they have 189 menu items to choose from. Central Florida Public Media's Marianne Summerall reports.
After a successful launch from the Kennedy Space Center, the crew of four and their space cuisine will fly around the moon. The menu includes a wide variety of foods with things like spicy green beans, tropical fruit salad, and maple cream cookies. In a NASA video about eating in space, astronaut Christina Cook says foods you wouldn't even imagine being rehydrated are actually good. NASA's Norm Knight, the director of the Flight Operations Directorate, says NASA tracks each meal to ensure the crew's health.
We have a food lab and we have folks at the Johnson Space Center tracking what they eat, the nutrition, the calories. It makes a difference.
Each crew member was able to help sample and craft their own menu preferences before launch. For NPR News, I'm Marion Summerall in Orlando.
This is NPR. Myanmar's parliament has elected the general who ousted Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi as the country's new president. The parliament vote comes after an election that analysts and opponents said was neither free nor fair. Nearly all childhood cancer deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, that's according to new research. And NPR's Gabriela Emanuel reports that sub-Sahara Africa has some of the worst mortality rates and they're rising.
Pediatric cancers are generally not preventable, but with good medical care, they are treatable. Still, in 2023, there were nearly 150,000 pediatric cancer deaths worldwide out of nearly 400,000 cases. Nikhil Bhakta of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital co-authored the study published in The Lancet.
How are desalination plants becoming a target in modern warfare?
He says in the U.S., the vast majority of children with cancer survive, but not in parts of Africa and Asia.
Less than 20% of children will survive. That disparity, that gap, is one of the largest in all of global health.
That's because treating childhood cancer requires a well-functioning medical system.
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