NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-14-2025 4PM EDT

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

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On NPR's wildcard podcast, Jeff Hiller says fans of his character in somebody somewhere have a slogan. WWJD. What would Joel do? You know, in the 80s they had, what would Jesus do? You've been deified. Oh, no. This is what brought the Beatles down. Watch or listen to that wildcard conversation on the NPR app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The Israel Hamas ceasefire in Gaza is largely holding, but President Trump, who brokered the agreement, says, if Hamas fails to disarm, quote, we will disarm them, end quote. Disarmament was a key stipulation in the ceasefire agreement.

Here's NPR's Deepa Shivaram. It's unclear how Trump would disarm Hamas and if it would involve U.S. personnel on the ground. Trump has said Hamas told him it would, in fact, disarm, though he later clarified that message was not directly to him, but to White House officials. We have told them we want disarm, and they will disarm. And if they don't disarm, we will disarm them. And it'll happen quickly and perhaps violently. But the president didn't put a timeline on disarmament.

He says it has to happen in a reasonable period of time, quote, pretty quickly. Deepa Chivaram, NPR News, the White House. The president hosted the president of Argentina, Javier Millet, today. He says Argentina's election results would affect. his administration's plans for a bailout package for the country, saying he will only support me late. Trump compared the political fight in Argentina to the mayor's race in New York City. Without naming him, Trump called Democratic candidates Zaraan Mamdani, a communist and said he was, quote, down and dirty. Trump similarly said he would not support New York if Mamdani won the race in

November. At the White House, Defense Secretary Pete Hexeth defended his new policy restricting press access to the Pentagon. be, Mr. President, the press could go anywhere, pretty much anywhere in the Pentagon, the most classified area in the world, or also that if they sign onto the credentialing, they're not going to try to get soldiers to break the law by giving them classified information. So it's common-sense stuff, Mr. President. We're trying to make sure national security is respected, and we're proud of the policy. However, a number of major news organizations, including NPR, and Heggseth's former employer, Fox News, are declining to sign on to the Pentagon's new restrictions.

Tomorrow, mark the first federal payday missed since the start of the current government shutdown. Here's Colorado Public Radio's Dan Boyce. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers received a reduced paycheck last Friday. Congress has voted to pay the military during shutdowns in previous years. President Trump has vowed to use Defense Department funding to do that again this time around. But it's unclear where that money would come from and if it can actually happen. Kay is a military spouse in Colorado Springs. She asked that we only use her first initial because she's afraid of retribution for speaking out.

There's a lot of panic. It starts to affect your mental health. It affects your stress levels. It affects the behavior at home, you know, as you start to worry about how are we going to pay these bills. Kay says her family has enough savings to miss two pay periods. Others, she knows, aren't as lucky. For NPR News, I'm Dan Boyce in Colorado Springs. This is NPR News. Grammy-winning artist DiAngelo has died. The revered R&B singer, whose real name was Michael Eugene Archer, passed away following a prolonged battle with cancer. His family says DeAngelo leaves a legacy of extraordinarily moving music.

One of the most notable moments was DeAngelo's video of How Does It Feel in 2000, which touched off conversations around sexuality and vulnerability and blackmail representation. DeAngelo was 51 years old. When it comes to reading, the nation's third through eighth graders are still mired in a pandemic-era slump. According to new testing data, here's NPR's Corey Turner. The data comes from NWEA, a K-12 testing and research organization, and its spring 2025 map growth assessment, a suite of tests taken by millions of students in thousands of schools across the U.S. In reading, students across most grade levels are still performing at or even below pandemic lows.

NWEA said this stagnation is consistent regardless of race, ethnicity, or school poverty level. In math, the news was only slightly better. Achievement either held steady or in some grades improved slightly, though nearly all grades remain behind the performance levels of kids in those same grades back in 2019. Corey Turner, NPR News. The Dow has closed up 200 points to end of 46,270. It's NPR news. 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.