NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-17-2025 6PM EDT

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton. The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the president to deploy national guard troops in Illinois. Lower courts block the order after state and local officials objected. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf has the latest. Lawyers for the Justice Department argue that troops are needed in the Chicago area to, quote, prevent ongoing and intolerable risks to the lives and safety of federal agents. Trump has been saying that Chicago and several other Democratic-led cities are lawless and need military intervention to quell protests and protect federal immigration facilities. He federalized the State National Guard against Governor J.B. Pritzker's wishes

earlier this month. In recent months, Trump has deployed National Guard troops to a number of Democratic-led cities, often at the objection of local leaders. Legal challenges are making their way through several courts. This appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court now being the highest. Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Washington. President Trump appears to be walking back plans to sell long-range tomahawk missiles to Ukraine that would allow it to strike deep into Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the powerful weapon would force Russia's Vladimir Putin to discuss ending its invasion. Zelensky said after the meeting, it is time for a ceasefire and negotiations.

I think we have to stop where we are and he is right. President is right and we have to stop where we are. This is important to stop where we are. and then to speak. Trump says the ceasefire deal in the Middle East gives the Russia-Ukraine talk's momentum and gave the U.S. quote, a lot of credibility. Trump says he will meet with Putin and Hungary in the coming weeks to discuss ending the war. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with top Russian officials next week.

Earlier this month, the White House asked a few selective universities to sign an agreement in exchange for federal funds. Now those schools are pushing back. NPR's Sequoia Corrilla reports. The agreement, or what the administration, is calling the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education would provide priority federal funding to the schools that pledge support for many of President Trump's policy goals. Among the demands are a five-year tuition freeze and capping international student enrollment

at 15%. Many schools feel the agreement would set a precedent for how funding is doled out. For instance, in MIT's letter declining the proposal, President Sally Cornblum states that, quote, scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone. own. MIT, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California have declined the invitation. Sequoia Carrillo, NPR News. The University of Virginia rejected the agreement today in a statement the school's interim president, Paul Mahoney, said the university doesn't want special treatment and that the agreement would, quote, undermine the integrity of vital, sometimes life-saving research and further erode

confidence in American higher education. Wall Street crews to the finish of a winning week today that began much bumpier. The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, both rose half a percent. This is NPR News. More than 2,000 people displaced by storms in Alaska won't be able to return to their homes in remote villages for at least 18 months, according to Governor Mike Dunleavy. In one of the hardest hit villages, Kipnuk, an initial assessment showed that 121 homes, or 90 percent of the total, have been destroyed. The governor says remnants of Typhoon Halong struck the with the ferocity of a category two hurricane. 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 more. 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. When all of a sudden up popped a signal from space. It came from Starshield, a network of classified satellites built by Space. 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. Japan's former Prime Minister, Tomiichi Murayama, who was known for his 1995 apology to Asian victims of Japan, Japan's imperial aggression died today. He was 101. Mariyama died at a hospital in his hometown of Oita in southwestern Japan. As head of what was then known as Japan's socialist party, Moriama led a coalition government in the mid-90s. This is NPR News.