NPR News Now - NPR News: 09-19-2025 1PM EDT

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The U.S. Senate has been deciding on a short-term spending bill to keep federal agencies funded through November, averting a government shutdown at the end of this month. Democratic leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, oppose it. House Speaker Mike Johnson addressed that after his chamber passed the measure. They're not being reasonable at all. A short-term CR is not a partisan exercise. We could have loaded this up with partisan provisions, but we're not doing that. All but one Democrat in the House voted against the measure we are working to confirm votes in the Senate.

The Trump administration is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block a judge's order allowing transgender and non-binary individuals to choose the identification marker on their passports rather than what matches their sex assigned at birth. The ACLU had sued arguing one woman had a passport return with a male designation and other transgender people were two sex. scare to submit their passports out of fear their documents would be held by the State Department. The Justice Department says the government should not recognize sex designations. It considers inaccurate on official documents. The State Department has released a new strategy for how the U.S. will engage in global health. We have more on this from NPR's Gabriela Manuel. For years, the U.S. paid billions in foreign aid dollars to non-governmental organizations to set up and maintain aid programs. With the new strategy, officials plan to live.

largely skip over NGOs and work directly with individual governments, integrating programs into their national health systems. Elisha Dungeorgio heads the Global Health Council. She says the strategy lacks details. How does it get implemented? Who are the partners? Do you have the structure to do this? Or do you all of a sudden have to kind of rebuild what you just tore down?

The Trump administration has already shuttered billions of dollars worth of global health programming. Gabriela Emmanuel NPR News. One of the nation's largest teachers unions is trying to pressure the Trump administration to cancel the debts of some federal student loan borrowers. NPR's Corey Turner reports. The American Federation of Teachers is seeking an injunction to force the Department of Education to cancel the debts of eligible borrowers. The agency has been delaying cancellation for those who have been in an income-driven repayment plan for the required 20 or 25 years, as well as for borrowers who have applied for cancellation under the public service loan forgiveness buyback program. The AFT calls these delays unlawful, while the Education Department tells NPR they are

largely the result of problems that began during the Biden administration. The clock is ticking for borrowers. In January, the government will again consider loan cancellation taxable income. Corey Turner, NPR News. From Washington, this is NPR News. Several Democratic lawmakers in Congress, each from California, are seeking to ban states from redrawing their congressional maps mid-decade. This follows Republican lawmakers in Texas and Missouri recently changing their maps at the urging of President Trump ahead of next year's midterm elections. Congressman Zoe Lovgren is a co-sponsor. President Trump has unleashed a redistricting war across the country, calling up Republican-controlled citizens.

states and demanding that they rigged their maps. Meanwhile, in Virginia, early voting began today in the state's gubernatorial race. Margaret Barthel, with Member Station WAMU, takes a look at that race. The race in Virginia pits former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, against current lieutenant governor, wins some Earl Sears, a Republican. Earl Sears is running on continuing the policies of her boss, Governor Glenn Yonkin, who can't run for a consecutive term. Spanberger is leading in the polls. She has focused her campaign on affordability and on pushing back on cuts to the federal workforce. J. Miles Coleman is with the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. The Trump administration is like going out of its way to antagonize this state, which was like so

tied into federal jobs. Down the ballot, the lieutenant governor, attorney general, and control of one House of the state legislature are also up for grabs. For NPR News, I'm Margaret Barthel. At last check on Wall Street, the Dow is up 126 points at 46,267. It's NPR News.