NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-01-2025 9AM EDT

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

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In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Windsor Johnston. The blame game over the government shutdown continues. Republicans and Democrats are trading jabs after negotiations on a short-term funding bill fell apart and the clock ran out. One of the major sticking points is a Democratic demand to extend Obamacare tax credits to avert a hike in premiums next year. Vice President J.D. Vance told Fox News last hour that's not a reason to shut down federal agencies.

Of course we all want to ensure that Americans have low-cost health care. Let's work together on that. You don't shut the government down. You don't take the government as a hostage. Speaking on CNN, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer hid back at the GOP. Republicans thought that they could barrel us into a shutdown because they didn't want to protect the health care of the American people. Well, now they've seen. They can't bully us. They can't barrel us. The government shutdown means hundreds of thousands of federal workers are now furloughed and key services are either halted. or could be delayed. President Trump says the National Institutes of Health

will invest in data sharing to boost the use of artificial intelligence in detecting and treating pediatric cancers. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports the move coincides with massive cuts in federal funding for scientific and medical research. The Trump administration says it's committing an additional $50 million

to an NIH program to build on ways to apply AI to fighting science. cancer. Michael Kratzios directs the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Using artificial intelligence, researchers will be able to, for example, build scalable models to predict how a child's body responds to therapies, letting doctors forecast cancer progression and minimize treatment side effects. The 50 million investment comes on the heels of billions in federal cuts to various health agencies involved as cancer prevention and research. Yuki Noguchi and PR News.

A new NPR, PBS News, Maris poll out today, finds the overwhelming majority of people when kids vaccinated before going to school. NPR's Domenico Montanaro reports. The survey indicates 82% support requiring children to be vaccinated against certain diseases such as measles, mumps, and rubella before attending public school. That includes 71% of Republicans, but Republicans don't feel as strongly as independents or Democrats do about this. For example, 77% of those who voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election felt strongly that children should be vaccinated, while only 30% of Trump voters did. The Trump administration, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has consistently moved to limit vaccinations and downplay their effectiveness.

Domenico Montanaro, NPR News, Washington. This is NPR News in Washington. Starting today, Medicare is tightening the rule. around telehealth for mental health care. To use the service, patients must have seen a provider in person at least once in the past six months. After that, they'll need to go in at least once a year to keep using remote services. There are exceptions for people who live in rural areas or can't travel easily. The new rule could make it harder for some people to keep getting mental health support online. A week-long power cut to a coolie.

system at a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant in central Ukraine is raising concerns of a meltdown. NPR's Joanna Kikisis reports Ukrainian president Volodemir Zelensky is calling the situation critical. Speaking in his nightly video address, Zelensky said Russian shelling is preventing the restoration of a power line at the Zaporizan nuclear power plant that's needed to avoid a meltdown. He said emergency generators, used as backup power are not designed for long-term use and that one generator has reportedly failed. The station currently produces no electricity but needs power to cool reactors. The station has had power cuts before, but never for this long. The UN's nuclear watchdog says there's no

immediate danger while backup diesel generators are operating and that it's working with both Ukraine and Russia to resolve the issue. Joanna Kikis and PR News, Kyiv. Stocks across Asia, close-mixed today. On Wall Street, Delf Futures are trading lower at this hour. This is NPR.