NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-12-2025 6PM EDT

Episode Date: October 12, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. With no end in sight to the federal government shutdown, many federal workers are struggling with how they'll get by once their paychecks stop coming. And here's Jennifer Ludden spoke with a single mom in Colorado, who's tried to prepare. Early this year, Stephanie Rogers and her two daughters moved in with her mom. It was to save money and also a hedge against mass layoffs and the chance of another shutdown. works for the FDA and is a chapter president of the National Treasury Employees Union. She remembers the 2018 shutdown that dragged out 35 days, so this time she made a painful decision. I had to pull out of my retirement, which has some big tax consequences for next year. She says the FDA is her dream job, but she has no idea if she'll get back pay or even still have a job whenever the shutdown ends. Jennifer Lutton and PR News. President Vance says the Trump administration will continue its court fight to be able to deploy National Guard troops in Illinois a day after a federal appeals court blocked the effort.

And here's Joe Hernandez reports. The ruling on Saturday allowed the Trump administration to keep the National Guard troops now in Illinois under federal control, but it blocked the deployment of those National Guard troops for now. Vice President Vance told ABCs this week on Sunday that the government would continue arguing its case in court. We're obviously going to litigate this as much as we can. We think that we have the authority to provide proper safety to our citizens all over the United States, but particularly in Chicago. Illinois's Democratic Governor J.D. Pritzker has repeatedly said there's no need for the National Guard in Illinois or Chicago and has accused Trump of overstepping his authority. So far this year, the Trump administration has deployed National Guard troops to a number of cities, including Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Joe Hernandez, NPR News. The U.S. brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is now in its third day.

Hamas is expected to release the remaining Israeli hostages by midday tomorrow, and then Israel will release Palestinian detainees. Aaron David Miller is with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I've participated in these negotiations for the better part of 20-plus years. Mostly we failed. Look, this is not a peace agreement. it is not even an exorable end to the Israeli Hamas warring Gaza, assuming the presidential leadership that Trump has demonstrated continues. It offers the first break in two years of a parade of horrors

that Israelis and Palestinians have visited upon one another. And it could, it actually could lead to an end of the war in Gaza. President Trump is on its way to the Middle East and is scheduled to speak to the Israeli parliament tomorrow. He'll then travel to Egypt to attend a summit of leaders discussing the future of Gaza. This is NPR News. Paleontologists say they've unearthed the oldest and most complete skeleton of a little-known group of dinosaurs. Ari Daniel reports on the rare find of the bipedal herbivore, which roamed the earth some 110 million years ago. The researchers in southern Mongolia spotted something in the rock face that looked like a

perfectly polished jewel. It was a skull belonging to a new species of the oldest known Pachycephalosaur, a dinosaur with a domed head made of solid bone. This specimen was at least two years old when it died, revealing young animals already had fully developed domes. Whether they were battling it out for territory or mates is something we're not entirely sure of, but whatever they were doing with those domes, they started practicing at a very young age. North Carolina State University paleontologist Lindsay Zano says the discovery fills a crucial gap in the evolution of these dynos. For NPR news, I'm Ari Daniel. Tomorrow, barring bad weather or mechanical problems, Elon Musk's SpaceX will conduct the

11th flight test of its starship and booster from the company's starbase in South Texas. SpaceX hopes it will build on August's successful flight, which was the first to complete all of its primary mission goals. The stainless steel starship will be uncrewed. The company says it's not planning an upright, fixed platform landing for this test. Instead, like the previous mission, Starship will splash down in the Indian Ocean. I'm Janine Herbst, and you're listening to NPR News from Washington.