NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-01-2025 2PM EDT

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Kristen Wright. There are no obvious signs the government shutdown will end quickly. Congress is responsible for voting on how to fund federal agencies. But members are sharply divided along party lines after multiple rounds of voting. The White House just held a briefing Vice President Vance says now isn't the time to negotiate. We all understand that Democrats and Republicans have policy disagreements. Democrats want to do things. Look, when Chuck Schumer and Akeem Jeffries were in here a couple of days,

ago, they made some suggestions that the president was more than happy to say, yes, let's sit down and talk about how we can solve the health care crisis that we inherited from the Biden administration. But it's one thing to say that we should solve the health care crisis for Americans. It's another thing to say that we're going to shut down the government unless we give the Democrats every single thing that they want. Democrats are holding firm on wanting to fund health care subsidies that are expiring under the Affordable Care Act. Those insurance premiums could spike. The White House says layoffs of furloughed workers are imminent. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are furloughed. Others are expected to work without pay until Congress reaches

a deal to reopen the government. NPR's Andrea Shue reports. The Congressional Budget Office estimates some 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed. That includes roughly half of the Department of Agriculture, half of civilians working for the Defense Department, and close to three quarters of the Labor Department, where most employees are still working, although mostly without pay, include the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and Transportation. Separate from the shutdown, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced layoffs of 1% of its staff, more than 100 people, including those in communications and the Patents Unit. That agency is not funded by Congress, but rather by user fees, so it remains operational. And reissue and PR News. The Trump

administration says it's cutting off billions of dollars of infrastructure funding from New York City. This move comes after President Trump threatened to punish the city if voters elect the Democratic mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani. NPR's Brian Mann reports now. Russell Vote, head of the Federal Office of Management and Budget, says roughly $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects have been frozen. Vote said the goal is to make sure tax dollars don't go to what he described as unconstitutional DEI principles. But the move comes days after Trump threatened to cut off federal funds to the city over his opposition to Zoran Mamdani, the Democratic socialist state assemblyman who leads the mayoral race.

In a social media post, Trump said Mamdani, quote, needs the money from me as president in order to fulfill all of his fake communist promises. He won't be getting any of it. So what's the point of voting for him? This is only the latest effort by Trump to intervene in the city's election. Ryan Mann, NPR News, New York. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. The federal government is coming up with new advice on alcohol as part of its new dietary guidelines.

The existing guidelines say no more than two drinks a day for men and one for women. But there are questions about whether the updated advice will underplay the harms of alcohol, as NPR's Will Stone reports. Federal health officials were going to consider two different reports on alcohol. One of them from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found moderate drinking was associated with a lower risk of dying, including from cardiovascular disease. The other study essentially came to the opposite conclusion that even low levels of drinking increased your risk of dying for many causes, including cancer and stroke. Scientists who worked on that report were told recently it would not be considered as part of the new guidelines. Mike Marshall is with the U.S. Alcohol Policy Alliance. To be focused on making America healthy again without addressing alcohol is inexplicable.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not comment on why the report was being excluded. Will Stone and PR News. A closely watched employment report out today shows private businesses got rid of jobs in September for the third time in four months. The data from private payroll processor ADP says the private sector decreased by 32,000 jobs last month. Analyst say it's another sign of weakness in the labor market. The U.S. Labor Department's report will not be released as scheduled this Friday because of the government shutdown. The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate in September to guard against a softening job market. This is NPR News.