NPR News: 04-03-2026 12PM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. Search efforts are under way after a U.S. official and Iranian state media say an American F-15 fighter jet was shot down over Iran. The fate of the crew isn't known. This happened a day after President Trump celebrated the U.S. bombing of a bridge in Iran, saying on social media that there was much more to follow. The U.S. and Israel continue to fire at Iran and Iran is firing back at Persian Gulf neighbors. Officials in the United Arab Emirates say that a fire broke out at a gas facility in the city of Abu Dhabi. And Firesiah Batrowi has more. Abu Dhabi says fallen debris from an interception sparked a fire at its hapshen gas facility on Friday, forcing the suspension of operations at what is one of the world's largest gas processing plants. The UAE says Iran has launched more than 2,000 drones and more than 470 missiles at it since the U.S. Israeli war on Iran began five weeks ago, most have been intercepted.

1:01Meanwhile, the Gulf Arab state of Bahrain has proposed a resolution to the U.N. Security Council that would authorize countries to take, quote, defensive measures to secure the passage of ships through the strait of Hormuz. The White House is asking Congress for the largest defense budget in modern U.S. history, and in a half trillion dollars. The spending boost comes amid the U.S. is more than month-long war with Iran. Imperial's Daniel Kurtzlavin has more. This spending boost would be paired with a requested 73 billion in cuts to domestic spending, according to a budget summary from the White House. The annual budget request represents a blueprint of the executive branch's priorities, though Congress ultimately set spending levels. Trump outlined his priorities during a closed press lunch this week with religious leaders. It's not possible for us to take care of, take care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection. We have to guard the country. The White House posted a video of the event before deleting it.

2:04Daniel Kurtzlavin and Pierre News, the White House. An employment of the U.S. dropped slightly in March, and Pierre Scott Horsley reports businesses added more jobs than economists were forecasting. U.S. employers added 178,000 jobs in March, offsetting big job losses in February. Health care saw the biggest gains adding 76,000 jobs. About half of that reflects people who returned to work after a February strike. Construction companies, restaurants, and factories also added jobs in March, while the federal government continued to lose workers. Revised figures for the two previous months were mixed, hiring was stronger than first reported in January, but February's job losses were bigger as well. The unemployment rate inched down in March to 4.3 percent. That was largely because almost 400,000 people dropped out of the workforce. Scott Horsley and Pierre News, Washington. Wall Street is closed today in observance of the Good Friday holiday. This is NPR. The crew of the Artemis II mission is hurtling toward the moon.

3:06They'll fly by in a few days and then circle back to Earth. But one topic of discussion? What do astronauts eat? NASA says they have dozens of items from which to choose. From Central Florida Public Media, Mary and Summerall explains. 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. As 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. From Pierre News, I'm Mary and Summerall in Orlando.

4:07In college basketball, the NCAA Women's Final Four takes place tonight with all four number one seeds taking the court in Phoenix. South Carolina plays Connecticut and then Texas will play UCLA. The men's final four takes place tomorrow night in Indianapolis with number three seed Illinois playing number two seed Connecticut that's followed by Michigan playing Arizona. Those are both number one seeds. I'm Janine Herbst and you're listening to NPR News from Washington.