NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-16-2025 4PM EDT

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. For a 10th time, the Republican-led Senate failed to get the votes to advance legislation to reopen the federal government. NPR's Robert Sprunt has details. The 51 to 45 vote fell short of the 60 votes needed to move forward. Senate Republicans need a handful of Democrats to join them in order to advance the bill. Two Democrats and one independent senator have repeatedly voted alongside Republicans. No new Democrats have joined them since that first vote. As the stalemate continues, Senate Democrats insist Republicans have to negotiate with them

in order to get their votes, specifically on the soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act subsidies. Republicans say, reopen the government first, negotiate after. Because the Senate doesn't plan to be in legislative session until Monday, it's expected that the funding lapse and negotiation impasse will hit the three-week mark next week. Barbara Sprint and Pierre News, the Capitol. President Trump will host Ukraine's president at the White House tomorrow, but first he called Russian President President President President Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with Putin and says the war in Ukraine is making Putin look bad. He has dubbed Russia a paper tiger and said he's been talking about giving Ukraine long-range tomahawk missiles and other things Kiev wants

and complaining that Putin doesn't seem to want the war to end. In a social media post, Trump said he talked with the Russian leader about trade deals once the war in Ukraine is over. He says he will talk to Zelensky about the conversation with Putin and will meet the Kremlin leader in Hungary sometime after U.S. and Russian negotiators lay the groundwork for a summit. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, Washington. NPR founding mother, Susan Stamberg, has died at the age of 87. Colleagues saw her as a yenta, a mentor, a storyteller who was always tough and true to herself. NPR's David Fokinflik with his tribute. Susan Stamberg joined NPR at its start at a time when commercial networks almost never hired women.

Stamberg said NPR's first program director, Bill Simmering, was brave to put her behind the microphone. And he said two magical words to me very early on. He said, be yourself. And what he meant was, we want to hear voices. on our air that we would hear across our dinner tables at night or at the local grocery store. She hosted all things considered in weekend edition and then became a special correspondent. She found joy in the creativity of culture, the spark of science, even the humanity in politics. To this day, Susan Stamberg's recorded voice announces each floor on the elevators at NPR's

headquarters in Washington, D.C. Third floor, newsroom. David Fulkenflick, NPR News. It's NPR. The Nepal Mountaineering Association says the last surviving member of the team that first-scale Mount Everest has died. Contra Sherpa was 92 years old. He was part of the 35-member mountaineering team that helped New Zealand's Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide tends in Norgae become the first known humans to reach Mount Everest's 29,032 feet peak in 1953.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced. His state will start making low-cost state-branded insulin available for sales starting January 1st. Each insulin pen will go for $11 in California or a maximum $55 for a five-pack. New research finds that vigorous mental exercise can produce biological changes in a person's brain. And PR's John Hamilton has more. The study involved 92 healthy people who were 65 and older. Half spent 30 minutes a day for 10 weeks playing video games like Solitaire and Candy Crows. rush, the other half did exercises from a demanding cognitive training program called Brain H.Q.

Etienne de Villersidani of McGill University says in people who got the training, levels of a key chemical messenger increased in a brain area involved in making decisions. It was about 2.3%, which is not huge, but it's significant. De Villar Sidani said the chemical messenger, called acetylcholine, typically declines by about 2.5% every 10 years starting in middle age. So cognitive training, he says, rolled back the clock by about a decade. John Hamilton, NPR News. U.S. stocks have ended the day lower.

The Dow closed down more than 300 points. It's NPR News.