NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-08-2025 2PM EDT

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

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The federal government has shut down. What are lawmakers arguing about? And what does it mean for you? The NPR Politics Podcast is here to make sense of it all, giving you updates and news every day to keep you informed. The NPR Politics Podcast. Listen every day. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. Authorities in Los Angeles have arrested a 29-year-old man. They say intentionally started a brush fire that later ignited the deadly palisades fire. And Pierce Kirk Sigler reports it was one of two blazes in January. They killed a total of 25 people and burned thousands of homes. Prosecutors arrested Jonathan Rindernecht in Florida. He's a former resident of L.A.'s Pacific Palisades neighborhood who faces a felony charge of maliciously starting the Palisades fire. Authorities say early on New Year's Day, he hiked up a popular trail to a vista where he intentionally set a brush fire that then smoldered underground for several days. Kenny Cooper is the ATF special agent in charge.

The fire was a holdover fire, meaning it was deeply seated in dense vegetation and roots and continued to burn undetected until catastrophic weather ensued, resulting in the palisades fire. Prosecutors showed AI-generated images from the suspect's phone that appear to show a dystopian city in the forest on fire. Kirk Sigler, NPR News. The federal government shutdown is now in its second week, with no end in sight, after the Senate again rejected short-term funding. bills today. Meanwhile, the Trump administration's threats to conduct mass layoffs of federal workers during the shutdown haven't happened yet. And Pierre Stephen Fowler has more. More than a weekend of the federal government shutdown, there's no sign for now of mass

layoffs promised by the Trump administration if a government funding deal is not reached. Aviva Arindine was an office of management and budget deputy in the Obama and Biden administrations and says that's because the law doesn't work that way. They can initiate shutdown-related furloughs for workers who are not funded and don't fall into various categories of accepted employment, but they can't fire people just because there's a shutdown. The White House is also floating a draft memo that would see furloughed workers not automatically get back pay. That conflicts with a 2019 law signed in by President Trump in his first arm. That guarantees it. Stephen Fowler and PR News. Two years into the war in Gaza,

health systems are in dire need of repair. And peers Jonathan Lambert has more. The humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire. WHO officials say over half a million people are trapped in famine-like conditions, one in five babies are born prematurely or underweight, and infectious diseases are surging. Health systems can't keep up. Only 14 of the 36 hospitals in Gaza are currently functioning because of bombing. Those that are still open face dire shortages of electricity, clean water, and medicines.

W.H.O officials say there aren't enough health care workers either. as more than 1,700 have been killed since the war began. WHO is assessing the overall damage and planning for recovery, but says that can't happen until the fighting stops. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. One of the recipients of this year's MacArthur Genius Grants is a street drug scientist who helped develop programs

to reduce fatal overdoses. Navarangasupa will receive an $800,000 award. And Pierce Brian Mann has more. Dasgupta, a researcher at the University of North Carolina, and was one of the first scientists to detect a hopeful drop in fatal overdoses in the U.S. He also developed a system to help spot deadly new drugs being sold on the streets, and he's helped distribute huge amounts of naloxone, the medication that reverses opioid overdoses.

Descopta's work is being honored at a time when the Trump administration is hoping to defund harm reduction efforts like Disgupta's that offer health care to people still using drugs. Does Gupta describe the MacArthur Genius Grant as validation? I don't think the universe could send a clearer signal that I should keep going in the direction we're going in. The Scoopta says there's more work to be done. Tens of thousands of people in the U.S. still die from overdoses every year.

Brian Mann, NPR News. And the MacArthur Foundation is a financial supporter of NPR. Priscilla has weakened to a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 70 miles an hour with higher gusts. The National Hurricane Center says up to an inch of rain is possible off the coast of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula with more rain expected farther north, with two to four inches expected across parts of Arizona and Utah over the next couple of days. Flash flooding and rough surf are possible along the Pacific coast of Mexico and the southwestern U.S. I'm Janine Herbst, NPR News in Washington. When someone you love is diagnosed with cancer or another serious illness,

all you want to do is help, but where do you start? On the Life Kit podcast, we have tips for you. Your agenda should be, I'm going to be with you and be totally present to whatever comes up. Listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts for different ways to offer support.