NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-17-2025 8AM EDT

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

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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. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korova Coleman. Ukrainian president Volodymy Zelensky meets President Trump today at the White House.

The meeting comes after Trump announced he'll meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hungary in a couple of weeks. NPS Michelle Kellerman reports they spoke by phone yesterday. President Trump says it was a productive call with Putin. One of the topics was Ukraine's request for long-range tomahawk missiles. I did actually say, would you mind if I gave a couple of thousand tomahawks to your opposition? I did say that to him. I said it just that way. He didn't like the idea.

Before the call, Trump suggested he might sell Tomahawks to Ukraine and expressed frustration with Putin, saying the Kremlin leader doesn't want to end the war, that is making Russia look bad. Now he says he will meet Putin after top U.S. and Russian diplomats make the arrangements, and he'll talk to Zelensky about what he heard on the call. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, Washington. Hamas has issued a statement saying it may take some time to locate bodies of deceased Israeli hostages in Gaza. Hamas says they could be in the rubble of bombed tunnels. The exchange of hostages and jailed Palestinians is part of phase one of the ceasefire deal, but the next stage is unclear.

NPR's Greg Myrie says Gaza doesn't yet have a functioning government. The ceasefire calls for a committee of technocrats to be formed, but we don't know when that might happen. The security conditions are still very volatile. Hamas police are back on the streets. Hamas gunmen are waging gun battles with Palestinian clans. A new Palestinian police force is being trained in Egypt. It's supposed to take over at some point, but we don't know when. NPR's Greg Myrie reporting. Republican leaders in New York will convene today to decide whether to disband the New York State young Republicans. From Member Station WNYC, Jimmy Veilkind tells us, the move comes after leaders of the young Republicans' group

reportedly exchanged offensive messages in a group chat. The NYGOP Executive Committee is considering a resolution to revoke the Young Republicans' charter in the wake of the scandal. Erie County Republican Chairman Michael Cracker says he'll vote yes. He wants the party to refocus on winning elections. Politico reported this week that New York Young Republican Leader Peter Junta led a group chat that included racist comments and jokes referencing Adolf Hitler in the Holocaust. Junta and other young Republicans in the chat lost government jobs after the messages were made public.

Vice President J.D. Vance has downplayed the racist and misogynistic chat as, quote, edgy jokes. But other Republicans point out these were professional geopolitics, not kids. For NPR News, I'm Jimmy Vilkine to New York. Today's the deadline for the Trump administration to give a federal judge a list of all federal government employees being laid off in the shutdown. down. The judge has temporarily halted the layoffs. This is 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 explains. 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 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 U.S. Energy Department says it is completing a lot. loan worth more than $1.5 billion. It will go to a company controlled by one of the biggest power companies in the U.S. The money is intended to upgrade about 5,000 miles of electrical transmission lines, mostly in the Midwest. The majority of the power that is transmitted on these lines comes from coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. Separately, attorneys general for more than a dozen states and Washington, D.C. are suing the Trump administration over a different energy issue. President Trump is terminating about $7 billion in funding that was supposed to be

spent on affordable solar energy projects in the U.S. I'm Corva Coleman. NPR News from Washington. Fall in love with new music every Friday. At all songs considered, that's NPR's Music Recommendation podcast, Fridays are where we spend our whole show sharing all the greatest new releases of the week. Make the hunt for new music a point. part of your life again, tap into New Music Friday from All Songs Considered, available wherever you get your podcasts.