NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-20-2025 7AM EDT

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

NPR News: 05-20-2025 7AM EDTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

We've all been there running around a city looking for a bathroom but unable to find A very simple free market solution is that we could just pay to use a bathroom But we can't on the Planet Money podcast the story of how we once had thousands of pay toilets And why they got banned from Planet Money on NPR wherever you get your podcasts Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korova Coleman. President Trump has suggested without evidence, former President Joe Biden delayed sharing his diagnosis of prostate cancer.

NPR's Mara Liason reports. Trump initially said he thought Biden's new health challenge was quote, very sad, but then he seemed to accuse Biden of hiding the information about his cancer. I'm surprised that it wasn't, you know, the public wasn't notified a long time ago because to get to stage nine, that's a long time. Biden's cancer is stage four, not stage nine. Trump may have been confusing that with Biden's Gleason score of nine.

A Gleason score measures the aggressiveness of cancer cells. The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force does not recommend that men over the age of 70 get routine prostate-specific antigen screening because the potential harms outweigh the benefits. Trump's latest comments were in line with his repeated attacks on Biden's physical and mental health. Mara Liason, NPR News. President Trump is going to Capitol Hill today to meet House Republicans. He wants them to support a budget bill a few Republicans seeking deeper federal spending

cuts have not backed it. All Democrats oppose it. That could make it harder for Republicans to pass the budget bill. The president spoke with Russian leader Vladimir Putin yesterday about ending the war in Ukraine. Trump says he is seeing progress toward peace. Putin instead pushed for more talks while the war in Ukraine goes on. The National Transportation Safety Board says there is no structural damage to the Brooklyn Bridge after it was hit Saturday by a Mexican naval vessel.

Two crew members were killed and several others were hurt. NTSB member Michael Graham says his agency is investigating three issues. First being the crew and the operation of the crew, the vessel and the condition of the vessel, and finally the environment and that includes the weather, the wind, the current, the tide, and the operating environment of that. But Mexico has not granted the NTSB access to the ship or allowed members to speak to the crew. The Trump administration is taking steps to limit people who use government food assistance

in buying soda and energy drinks. Nebraska's governor says his state will be one of the first to adopt the policy, and Biers Katia Riddle reports. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has signed a waiver that she says will remove soda and energy drinks from the list of things people can buy with their SNAP benefits in certain states. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It's the primary federal food subsidy program in the U.S. Rollins calls the waiver the first of its kind and says it is quote a historic step to make America healthy again. While many food

policy experts acknowledge that sugar is a contributor to chronic disease they argue people need more choices not fewer. Rollins said governors of at least six other states will participate. She called them quote pioneers in improving the health of our nation. This is NPR. There were dozens of tornadoes reported yesterday from Colorado to the Plains. Several of them were in Kansas, where significant damage was reported. More damage was reported in Oklahoma from another tornado.

There were powerful storms moving across the Central U.S. this morning. Over the weekend, tornadoes killed more than two dozen people in Kentucky, Indiana and Missouri. NPR's Rebecca Hersha reports large outbreaks of tornadoes are getting more common. The total number of tornadoes has been stable since scientists started tracking them in the 1950s. But big outbreaks, where lots of storms move across a large area, have gotten more common in recent decades. Melissa Widhelm helps lead the Midwestern

Regional Climate Center at Purdue University. In the past, we didn't see the kind of large outbreak days that we do now. It used to be kind of unusual to see dozens of them in a day, and now we get that year after year. It's unclear what role, if any, climate change might play in tornado trends. Scientists are actively working to understand how tornadoes are changing in order to better protect people in harm's way. Rebecca Herscher, NPR News. Netflix says it will pick up the iconic children's show Sesame Street. That was dropped by Max earlier. Under the new agreement with Netflix, PBS will run new episodes of Sesame

Street on the same day and date as they stream on Netflix. Separately, the animated children's favorite Peppa Pig is a big sister again. The animated character surprised fans this morning with news that her animated little sister, Evie, has been born. This is NPR.