This is Fresh Air contributor Anne Marie Baldinado.

I talked with actor Colescola about their hit Broadway play, Oh Mary.

Cole plays an unhinged, alcoholic Mary Todd Lincoln, who's an aspiring cabaret performer.

If that makes no sense, that's part of the point.

You can find my interview on the Fresh Air podcast.

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 Grosales 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. Claude Grisales, NPR News, the Capitol. 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.

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