NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-17-2025 12PM EDT

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

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Lie from NPR News. I'm Lakshmi Singh. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton is pleading not guilty to all 18 charges of an indictment related to the mishandling of classified information. He entered his plea this morning before Chief Magistrate Judge Timothy Sullivan in federal court in Maryland. Bolton accuses President Trump for whom he worked in his first term of weaponizing the Justice Department to retaliate against his most prominent political critics. Hundreds of no king's demonstrations are planned across the U.S. this weekend to declare that President Trump is not a king and his rule is not absolute. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has this take, though, on this weekend's events. We refer to it by its more accurate description, the hate America rally. And I'm not sure how anybody can refute that. Well, the demonstrations are being held against a backdrop of controversial National Guard troop deployments and immigration enforcement actions in mainly Democratic-led jurors. restrictions. Ukrainian president of Vladimir Zelensky is expected back at the White House for another meeting with President Trump about an hour from now. NPR's Joanna Kisses has more from Kiev.

Zelensky's relationship with Trump has improved dramatically in the last few months since Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance berated the Ukrainian president in the Oval Office this February. Zelensky says he will nominate Trump for next year's Nobel Peace Prize if Trump can secure a ceasefire that's fair to Ukraine. Ukrainian lawmaker, Alexander Mureshko, said the obstacle to peace is Putin. Putin, he's not interested in any kind of ceasefire because ceasefire or peace for him means political death. He might lose power if he stops the war of aggression.

Trump spoke to the Russian leader by phone on Thursday, and they're set to meet in Hungary soon. Joanna Kikis and PR News, Kiev. The administration has struck a third drug company, as part of its push to lower drug prices in America. This one focuses on drugs used in in vitro fertilization. More from NPR, Sidney Lepkin. President Trump announced drug maker 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 Serrono will get an expedited FDA review of a new drug and relief from certain tariffs. Sidney Lepkin and PR News. The Dow is up nearly 100 points. You're listening to NPR. NPR has learned that a constellation of classified defense satellites built by the commercial company, SpaceX, is emitting a mysterious signal.

NPR's Jeff Brumfield has the latest. An amateur satellite observer in Canada named Scott Tilly discovered the signal accidentally. It was just a clumsy move at the keyboard. I was just resetting some stuff. stuff. When all of a sudden up popped a signal from space. It came from Starshield, a network of classified satellites built by SpaceX for the U.S. government. Starshield is broadcasting on radio frequencies normally reserved to send commands from Earth to satellites in orbit. Tilly worries it might disrupt communications with other scientific and commercial satellites. It's

unclear what the signal is for. SpaceX in the U.S. National and Reconstance Office did not respond to NPR's request for comment. Jeff Brumfield, NPR News. The major automaker Ford is now recalling more than 290,000 vehicles in the United States due to a defect with the rear-view camera system. The company says the images might not show up well under certain lighting conditions and could increase the risk of a collision. Ford is not reporting connections between the defect and injuries or accidents. The recall affects certain F-250, 3-50, and 4-4-4-2.

450 SD vehicles between the 2020 to 2022 model years. The Dow is up, roughly 96 points. SMP's off 1. The NASDAQ is down 67. It's NPR News.