NPR News Now - NPR News: 05-22-2025 8AM EDT

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

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Imagine, if you will, a show from NPR that's not like NPR, a show that focuses not on the important but the stupid, which features stories about people smuggling animals in their pants and competent criminals in ridiculous science studies, and call it Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me Because the Good Names Were Taken. Listen to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Yes, that is what it is called wherever You Get Your Podcast. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korva Coleman. The Republican-led House of Representatives has approved a bill at the heart of President

Trump's domestic agenda. NPR's Claudia Grisales reports the legislative win comes after months of GOP party infighting. House Speaker Mike Johnson, along with President Trump's help, was able to flip GOP holdouts to get the plan passed by one Republican vote. This is a historic moment that we will be talking to our children and our grandchildren about and everyone will remember. America's back. The bill will extend a tax package passed under President Trump's first term, install

new immigration and energy policy, and raise deductions for state and local taxes. It also includes plans for new Medicaid work requirements, which could threaten coverage for millions of Americans. The bill now heads to the Senate, where there's plenty of talk to change the plan. Claudia Grisales, NPR News. Hospitals in northern Gaza have collapsed under Israeli bombardment this week. Israel's military has not

commented on these attacks but says it is targeting Hamas infrastructure. NPR's Ea Batraoui reports the attacks are part of a wider Israeli offensive aimed at pushing Palestinian civilians south. Israel's military ordered all of northern Gaza evacuated following several days of attacks on hospitals in the area. Rescue crews tell NPR an estimated 100,000 people are still in the north, where airstrikes have killed dozens of people sheltering in homes there,

among them a five-day-old baby Tuesday night. The main Indonesian hospital in north Gaza, which had a trauma and emergency ward, shut down after an Israeli drone bombed its generators. A smaller field hospital was also forced to shut down from shelling on Tuesday. And the director of the North's Al-Awda Hospital, Dr. Mohammed Salha, says the medical storage was bombed overnight and the upper floor of the hospital was hit. In a message on WhatsApp, he says patients and staff inside have no safe passage out. A. Abel Trawee, NPR News, Dubai.

Teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency are in St. Louis. They're assessing damage from last Friday's tornado. St. Louis Public Radio's Chad Davis has more. A huge part of the left side of Patrice Robbins' St. Louis house has been destroyed. We have cracks in the foundation. We have leaks that we didn't have before. Floor tiles are moved in there. Some of the roof is missing.

There's a notice on her door prohibiting her from entering the house. Four FEMA teams have been dispatched in the city and one in the county. Ryan Lowry-Lee is a spokesperson for FEMA. The more information that we're able to gather in these next few days, the better that information is the governor to make that determination on whether to request the declaration. Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe says he'll ask for a major disaster declaration for federal funding. For NPR News, I'm Chad Davis in St. Louis.

On Wall Street in pre-market trading, Dow futures are lower. This is NPR. Police in Washington, D.C., say that two staffers from the Israeli embassy were shot and killed last night. They were leaving an event at a D.C. museum. D.C. police say they've arrested a suspect who chanted, free Palestine, when he was in handcuffs. The Israeli government has identified the staffers as Yaron Lashinsky and Sarah Milgram. President Biden's late-stage prostate cancer diagnosis has revived debate about the

recommendations around screening, and Piers Yuki-Naguchi reports. Piers Yuki-Naguchi, Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D. 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 age 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. The U.S. Energy Department says it is taking Puerto Rico's funding for solar projects and instead will spend it on maintaining power infrastructure. Puerto Rico's power grid is not stable. Residents have sought solar systems to ensure access to power. I'm Korva Coleman, NPR News in Washington. Politics is a lot these days. I'm Sarah McCammon, a co-host of the NPR Politics podcast, and I'll be the first to tell you what happens in Washington definitely demands some decoding.

That's why our show makes politics as easy as possible to wrap your head around. Join us as we make politics make sense on the NPR Politics podcast, available wherever you get your