NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-16-2025 8PM EDT

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

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This message comes from NPR sponsor, Subaru. All month long, Subaru is helping shelter pets find loving homes, including the hard-to-adopt underdogs. Learn more at Subaru.com slash pets. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton. The Republican-led Senate did not get enough votes to reopen the government today. As NPR's Barber Sprunt reports, it's the 10th time of vote like this has failed. 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 PR News, The Capitol. A grand jury has indicted former national security advisor John Bolton for allegedly mishandling classified information. It comes almost two months after FBI agents searched Bolton's home as part of a long-running investigation. NPR's Ryan Lucas has more on the classified materials

Bolton allegedly shared with family members. It says that Bolton regularly sent diary-like entries to these two family members. It says he wrote these by transcribing handwritten notes that he took on yellow notepads about what he was doing on any given day, transcribed them into word processing documents that he sent electronically to these two family members. He also sent emails to them with classified information from his personal email accounts. NPR's Ryan Lucas reporting, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is suing the Trump administration over its fees for H-1B visas, NPR's Maria Aspen reports the business group is taking a rare stand

against the Trump administration's immigration policies. The Chamber of Commerce is one of the biggest pro-business lobbying groups in the country. It's now suing President Trump over his new plans to charge employers $100,000 per visa for skilled workers, such as software engineers. The president's steeped new fee for these visas through the business community, and hundreds of thousands of workers who have them into chaos last month. In a statement, the chamber called the fee unlawful and said it would hurt U.S. employers. A health care staffing business and labor unions have already sued the Trump administration over these fees.

But the new lawsuit marks one of the only times this year that a big business group has openly opposed Trump's policies. Maria Aspen, NPR News, New York. A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from withholding. holding nearly $34 million in anti-terrorism funds for New York City's transit system. The administration withheld the funds because of New York's protections for unauthorized immigrants. Judge Lewis Kaplan called the move, quote, arbitrary, capricious, and a blatant violation of the law. This is NPR News. The U.S. is offering $115 million to South Africa to continue funding HIV treatment and prevention programs until the spring.

Its assigned relations are improving despite recent tensions. Earlier this year, President Trump suspended all aid for South Africa, including AIDS relief. The program has been credited with saving more than 25 million lives. South Africa has the highest number of people living with HIV in the world. New research finds that vigorous mental exercise can produce biological changes in a person's brain. NPR's John Hamilton has more on a study in the journal J.M.I.R. Serious Games. 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 Crush.

The other half did exercises from a demanding cognitive training program called Brain H.Q. Etienne de Villers-Dadne 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. To be there, Sidney 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 and PR News. Illinois Governor and billionaire J.B. Pritzker won $1.4 million playing blackjack in Las Vegas.

He reported the jackpot on his federal tax return this week. The second term Democrat told reporters he won it during a vacation with his wife and friends. This is NPR News from Washington. 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.