NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-21-2025 7PM EDT

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

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When Malcolm Gladwell presented NPR's Throughline podcast with a Peabody Award, he praised it for its historical and moral clarity. On Throughline, we take you back in time to the origins of what's in the news, like presidential power, aging, and evangelicalism. Time travel with us every week on the Throughline podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. House Speaker Mike Johnson says his conference is closing in on a deal for a massive partisan spending plan.

NPR's Claudio Graciales reports Johnson made the remarks after an hours-long meeting with President Trump and GOP holdouts. House Speaker Mike Johnson said leaders made new ground with deficit hawks during the White House meeting in their effort to eventually pass a new sweeping tax and spending package. I think that all of our colleagues here will really like this final product. We're excited. I believe we are going to land this airplane. Fiscal hardliners who have raised concerns over the deficit were invited to the meeting

after successfully stalling momentum on what President Trump calls his big, beautiful bill. Johnson said they could address some of those issues through presidential executive orders, allowing the vast majority of the current plan a better chance of passage out of the House as early as this week. Claudia Gonzalez, NPR News, The Capital. The U.S. has officially accepted a Boeing 747 luxury jet worth several hundred million dollars as a gift from the Qatari government. That's according to an Air Force spokesperson who says it's been tasked to upgrade it to

be used as a new Air Force One to carry President Trump. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf reports. The spokesperson told NPR that the Department of Defense had instructed the Air Force to quote award a contract to modify a Boeing 747 aircraft for an executive airlift, saying further details are classified. They spoke on the condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to speak publicly. Trump has suggested the plane could be converted quickly for use as a new Air Force One, but experts say it will likely require significant upgrades to meet the high security and communications

requirements, work that could take several years and cost anywhere from several hundred million to a billion dollars. Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Washington. President Biden's late-stage prostate cancer diagnosis has revived debate about recommendations around screening, and Piazuki Noguchi has more. Prostate cancer is very common, but also tends to be slow-growing. There's a blood test called the prostate-specific antigen, or PSA test, but it is prone to false positives.

In the past, that led to unnecessary treatments, so the guidelines remain murky. In recent decades, the organization that issues recommendations, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, has seesawed, especially for men aged 55 to 69. It gives its own recommendation of testing at that age group a tepid grade of C. For those over age 70, like the former president, screening is no longer recommended because the benefits would not outweigh the downsides of treatment. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News.

Blame Wall Street's worst sell-off in weeks on bond market jitters linked to the lack of a budget deal in Washington. The Dow fell more than 800 points. The Nasdaq dropped 270 points. This is NPR. There's a new face at the top of the Billboard albums chart and it's wearing a mask. NPR Stephen Thompson has the story. The English hard rock band Sleep Token debuts on this week's Billboard 200 at number one.

Even in Arcadia is the band's first chart topper and all ten of its songs have landed on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart. ["Sleep Token's Backstory"] It's a remarkable feat for a band that has remained a mystery. Secrecy surrounds the true identity of its members, who wear masks and have constructed elaborate lore around Sleep Token's backstory. It's also, coincidentally enough, the second time this month that a mask-clad hard rock band has entered the album chart at number one. Just two weeks ago, the Swedish band Ghost did exactly the same thing.

Stephen Thompson, NPR News. The cryptocurrency Bitcoin has hit an all-time high. The digital asset reaching level is not seen since President Trump's inauguration with a single Bitcoin at one point trading above $109,000 today, up from lows of about $75,000 last month. Several other cryptocurrencies have seen similar gains. The price increase comes as the crypto industry got a major win with the US Senate advancing legislation creating a framework to regulate stable coins. As the name

suggests they are a type of cryptocurrency made stable by being pegged to a reserve asset. Crypto futures prices moved lower today oil dropped 47 cents a barrel to $61.57 a barrel in New York. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington.