NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-16-2025 7PM EDT

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

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Latin music has never been bigger, but it's always been big on Alt Latino. 15 years in, we continue celebrating Latinidad through a music lens, transcending borders through Ritmo. Get to know artists from La Cultura on a deeper level and throw some new Latin music wrecks into your rotation. Listen to Alt Latino in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton. In recent weeks, President Trump is carryout. a series of strikes on boats in the Caribbean, saying he's targeting Venezuelan drug cartels. He also says the South American nation has, quote, emptied its prisons into the U.S.

Now he says he's expanding the campaign from sea to land. As NPR's Tom Bowman explains, experts are questioning the legality of the attacks. I have talked to a number of lawyers, former Jags, law professors. They all have serious concerns about the legal rationale that's provided here. They say that it's full of holes that it's essentially the press. president determining on his own by Dictot that we are in an armed conflict and that that gives him the right to conduct these arm strikes, in essence, to kill people on boats in the Caribbean. NPR's Ryan Lucas reporting. The Trump administration has struck a third drug company, struck a deal with

a third drunk company as part of its push to lower drug prices in America. This one focuses on drugs used in in vitro fertilization. NPR's Sydney Lupkin reports. President Trump announced drugmaker EMD Serrano has agreed to lower prices for its fertility drugs, like Gano F, sold directly to patients not using their insurance. All told, the company's IVF drugs will be offered at an 84% discount. But the deal doesn't include EMD Serono's other drugs for things like cancer and multiple sclerosis. The announcement is part of the president's push to bring U.S. drug prices in line with those paid in other countries, an effort he calls most favored nation pricing. And it follows his campaign, promise to make IVF more affordable. A typical IVF cycle can cost as much as $30,000, and while drugs are part of that, they aren't the majority of the total cost. For its part, EMD Serono will get an expedited FDA review of a new drug and relief from certain tariffs. Sidney Lepkin, NPR News. NPR founding mother, Susan Stamberg, has died at the age of 87. Colleagues saw her as a mentor and a storyteller who was always tough and true to herself. NPR's a

David Fulkenflick pays 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 and 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. Stock slumped after a turbulent day of trading today. This is NPR News. President Trump has been showcasing plans for a major new monument that he wants to add to Washington, D.C., as NPR's Anastasia Zulchus reports, it's a grand, classically styled arch topped with eagles and a gilded winged statue. At two events this week, President Trump showed off models of the proposed arch. The plan's neoclassical design is similar to the Arc de Triumph in Paris and echoes the D.C. architecture favored by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Online, it's already being called the Ark to Trump. Journalists asked the president who the proposed arch would be built for.

He replied, me. It's also being discussed as a celebration of the nation's 250th anniversary. The arch would sit in a traffic circle between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial and could potentially dwarf the Lincoln monument in scale. Anastasi Azea Zilkis and PR News, New York. The EU is laying out a plan to ensure that Europe can defend itself against an outside attack by the end of the decade amid concerns of Russian aggression. The plan includes a system to track and disable drones following a series of troubling airspace violations across Europe over the last month. And the last surviving member of the first Mount Everest expedition team, Concha Sherpa, has died at 92.

He was part of the 1953 team that helped New Zealander Edmund Hillary reach the summit. last year he expressed concerns about overcrowding on Everest and urged respect for the mountain. Born in 1933, he began mountaineering at age 19 and was active until age 50. This is NPR News from Washington.