NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-21-2025 6PM EDT

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

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Know that fizzy feeling you get when you read something really good, watch the movie everyone's been talking about, or catch the show that the internet can't get over? At the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, we chase that feeling four times a week. We'll serve you recommendations and commentary on the buzziest movies, TV, music, and more. From lowbrow to highbrow to the stuff in between, catch the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. President Trump welcomed South African president, Seol Ramaphosa today, holding an Oval Office meeting that became heated more than once over questions

about race relations in South Africa and over an airplane cutter has gifted the U.S. and bureaus Daniel Kurtz-Leibniz more. While the Oval Office meeting began cordially, it grew hostile when Trump repeated false claims of white genocide. At one point, Trump paused the meeting to show the room a four and a half minute video promoting the idea that white South African farmers are being targeted. I must tell you, Mr. President, we have had a tremendous number of people, especially since they've seen this, generally they're white farmers and they're fleeing South Africa. And it's a very sad thing to see. South African President Ramaphosa pushed back against Trump's claims, also stressing that

he wanted to, quote, reset the relationship between the United States and South Africa. It wasn't the only topic that angered the president. Trump also repeatedly insulted a reporter from NBC when he asked the president about his administration's accepting a luxury airplane as a gift from Qatar. Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News. The UN says it is continuing to try to get desperately needed aid into Gaza. However, even as some aid is starting to get in, it's not clear how much is getting to those who needed the most. Fears of looting, along with restrictions imposed by the Israeli military, are keeping trucks that have

gotten in just inside Gaza. Food security experts meanwhile say Gaza is falling into famine unless Israel ends its three-month-long blockade. Google is making artificial intelligence a more prominent part of its search engine. It is a step to compete with AI chatbots, which analysts think will snag an increasingly large share of the market. Here's NPR's John Rewich. Google's new feature is called AI mode, and Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai says it's a total reimagining of search. AI mode appears to operate like other AI chatbots, answering questions, making suggestions, and entertaining follow-up queries. Google has dominated internet search for about a quarter century, but analysts and industry

insiders believe that increasingly powerful AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Perplexity pose a threat as more and more people turn to AI for answers. Concerns about AI's incursion into the search arena grew earlier this month when an Apple executive testified in a court case involving Google that traditional Google searches in Apple's Safari browser had fallen for the first time in two decades. John Rewich, NPR News. Electric vehicle maker Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk have been promising that vehicles requiring no human intervention will be on the road soon, though it's a promise Musk has made before, this time Musk promising thousands of self-driving versions of his electric vehicles will be on the road by the end of next year.

Investors are anxiously awaiting a test run of the company's self-driving taxi service in Austin next month. Blame Wall Street's sell-off in weeks or sell-off in weeks on bond market jitters, the Dow was down more than 800 points. This is NPR. A college student from Massachusetts is expected to plead guilty to stealing millions of student and teacher's private data from a pair of U.S. education technology companies, then trying to extort the companies. 19-year-old Matthew Lane, a student at Assumption University,

is accused of using stolen login credentials to access the computer network of a software and cloud storage company serving school systems. Wayne allegedly threatened to release tens of millions of students' and teachers' names unless the company agreed to pay ransom of $2.85 million worth of Bitcoin. New data show a record-breaking amount of forest disappearing in 2024. MPR's Rebecca Herschel reports fires were the main reason for the loss. Researchers at the University of Maryland track how much forested area is lost each year in tropical areas around the world. In the past, agriculture has been the main reason that

tropical forests are destroyed. But in 2024, fires were the leading cause of forest loss. Fires accounted for almost half of all forest destruction last year. That includes both wildfires and fires used to intentionally clear forested areas. And the total amount of forest loss last year nearly doubled compared to the year before. Forests are important for many reasons. They provide habitats for animals, clean the air, protect drinking water sources, and trap carbon dioxide that would otherwise contribute to global warming.

Rebecca Herscher, NPR News. Critical futures prices moved lower amid continued global uncertainties, including talks with Iran about its disputed nuclear program. Oil fell 47 cents a barrel, settled at $61.57 a barrel. This is NPR.