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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The U.S.
Chapter 2: What impact is the U.S. war with Iran having on energy prices?
war with Iran is hitting energy prices and has helped drive annual inflation to the highest level in roughly three years. Today, the Labor Department says consumer prices in April were 3.8 percent higher than than the same time a year earlier. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is back on Capitol Hill defending the Pentagon's 2027 military budget request of $1.5 trillion.
Jules Hurst III, the Pentagon's top budget and finance official, is telling members of Congress that the cost of the war is higher than the last estimate a couple of weeks ago, $4 billion higher.
At the time of testimony in front of the Haskett was $25 billion. But the joint staff team and the cop trailer team are constantly looking at that estimate. And so now we think it's closer to $29 billion. That's because of updated repair and replacement of equipment costs and also just general operational costs to keep people in theater.
Her saying $29 billion. Some analysts estimate the war cost is much higher than that. The war is expected to be one of the issues discussed when President Trump travels to China. He leaves this afternoon. NPR's Domenico Montanaro reports on what people in the U.S. think of the U.S.-China relationship in a survey done by NPR in conjunction with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Ipsos.
In two polls over the last few months, there were some notable findings. First, Americans see China on the rise and eyeing a dominant role in the world. 78% say they believe China wants to be a dominant world leader, particularly economically. But respondents also say they want to keep a strong trading relationship with China, and they want tariffs lowered to keep costs down for U.S. consumers.
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Chapter 3: How is the Pentagon justifying its 2027 military budget request?
Most also say the Iran war has been bad for both countries and their economies, but more Americans say the war is boosting China's geopolitical position than say it's helping U.S. national security. Domenico Montanaro, NPR News, Washington.
Some businesses that applied for tariff refunds are expected to start getting their money this week. NPR's Alina Selyuk reports it's been nearly three months since the Supreme Court ruled most of the tariffs President Trump ordered last year were illegal.
The U.S. government took about two months to set up an online system where companies that paid the illegal tariffs could request their money back. That's an estimated $166 billion, though not all of it is being processed in this first wave. U.S. Customs has also acknowledged that it did reject more than a third of refund claims for technical and data errors, though importers can refile.
As of about two weeks ago, the agency said it had accepted claims covering about a fifth of all the shipments that are due refunds. Nike is the latest big company to face a class-action lawsuit that argues shoppers should get a cut of any refunds because... They paid the costs through higher prices. Nike declined comment. Alina Seljuk, NPR News. It's NPR.
The man accused of attempting to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner last month has pleaded not guilty. 31-year-old Cole Allen appeared in federal court for his arraignment yesterday. NPR's Odette Youssef says a survey suggests many people have doubts this and two other assassination attempts on Trump were
The NewsGuard YouGov poll surveyed 1,000 Americans. It asked about the incident at the dinner, as well as incidents at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and on golf grounds in West Palm Beach, Florida. 30 percent of respondents thought at least one of those was staged.
Across all three events, Democrats were most skeptical of the Butler incident, with 42 percent saying they thought it was staged. NPR's Adet Youssef.
A hearing aid your brain controls. NPR's John Hamilton reports on a study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience that suggests how the advancement in hearing assistance can make it easier for people to communicate in noisy places.
The study used a hearing system that responds to a person's own brain waves. Nima Maskarani of Columbia University says the system detects a special signal produced when the brain is trying to focus on a specific sound. That gives us a signature that we can look at someone's brain and then we can decide, oh yeah, this is the source that they want to listen to.
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