NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-19-2025 7AM EDT

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korava Coleman. In a late vote last night, the House Budget Committee voted to advance a multi-trillion dollar spending package. NPR's Barbara Sprunt reports that last Friday, a small group of Republican lawmakers voted to block the mammoth package. House leadership spent the weekend in discussions with fiscal conservatives who voted against advancing the bill out of committee. House Speaker Mike Johnson said one area of negotiation

is accelerating work requirements for Medicaid. Hardliners were concerned the requirements wouldn't kick in soon enough. The original holdouts ended up voting present at essentially a do-over committee vote late Sunday night, which allows the bill to move forward. But negotiations aren't over yet. There are multiple groups within the conference who say they aren't yet satisfied. Yet Johnson says they are still on track to pass the bill

by Memorial Day. Barbara Sprun and PR News, The Capitol. Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to his office. The cancer has spread to the bone. Biden's office says he was checked after developing symptoms and it says the cancer appears to be hormone sensitive. This means that there are options for effective management. At least 28 people died in severe storms and tornadoes that ripped through the central US over the past few days. Five people died in St. Louis. In neighboring Kentucky, tornadoes killed at least 19

people. From member station WKY, Karen Zahr reports from London, Kentucky, where she spoke with storm survivors who lost loved ones. Amanda Radford stood on a driveway staring at a cement foundation where her parents' home ones stood. Richard and Wanda McFall were asleep when a tornado cut through their neighborhood. It tore their house apart, tossing their SUV out of the garage into the air. It landed on their bedroom. They were in bed.

So we did not get to keep them. They were gone. Bradford, her children, friends and a host of volunteers spent Sunday searching for anything that could be saved. But she said it was all gone. For NPR News, I'm Karen Zarr in London. The National Weather Service is warning there are more risks today for severe storms in the central and southern U.S. plains. Authorities in Louisiana are still looking for seven prisoners who broke out of a New Orleans jail last Friday.

Another three have already been recaptured. Officials think the escaped inmates are getting help from people on the outside. Louisiana State Police Superintendent Colonel Robert Hodges is warning against this. If you are helping and assisting these fugitives, allowing them to remain uncaptured and not brought to justice, there will be consequences. And there may be charges for you. Authorities have upped the reward for the prisoners captured to $20,000 per inmate.

You're listening to NPR. President Trump is expected to speak by phone today with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He's also expected to hold separate calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and with NATO leaders. Trump says he wants to push toward an end to Russia's war in Ukraine. Yesterday, the Ukrainian president met with Vice President J.D. Vance in Rome. They were there to attend Pope Leo XIV's inaugural mass. Today, Britain and the European Union are holding their first official summit since Brexit. It's been five years since Britain left the EU, but the Ukraine War and the Trump

administration have brought them closer since then. And Piers Lauren Freyer reports from London. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who voted against Brexit in the 2016 referendum, calls this summit a reset of British relations with the EU. It includes a deal to extend European fishing rights in UK waters. It does not include freedom of mobility, the idea that EU citizens can live and work freely in Britain. But officials are working out details of a limited youth mobility scheme, under which British students and twenty-somethings may be able to work short-term jobs in Europe

and vice versa. The UK and EU are also working together on the continent's security and defence, boosting defence spending and bolstering aid and weapons shipments to Ukraine. Lauren Freyer, NPR News, London. And in case you missed it, Austria won this year's Eurovision Song Contest. The Austrian contestant JJ beat out 25 other competitors for the top prize. Eurovision has launched other groups like ABBA to stardom. This is NPR.