NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-27-2025 5AM EDT

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dave Mattingley. The government shutdown is nearly four weeks old. It's the second longest on record. NPR's Luke Garrett says paychecks for members of the U.S. military and federal food services are set to stop, with Congress showing few signs of resolving the funding impasse. The Department of Agriculture says the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP will end food assistance by November 1st. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tells ABC News funds are running out to pay the troops. We're going to be out of money on November 15th, and, you know, for our military not to get paid is a disgrace. Republicans and Democrats can't agree on how to fund the government or whether to extend health care benefits. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries tells CBS News, Democrats want to negotiate. There is an urgent need to reopen the government, which is why we continue to demand that Republicans sit at the negotiation. table. President Trump and Republican leaders say they won't negotiate until Democrats first vote to reopen

the government. Luke Garrett, NPR News, Washington. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina says he believes President Trump may soon escalate U.S. airstrikes against Venezuela and Colombia. In recent months, the military has been targeting boats from the two countries suspected of carrying drugs and cartel members in the Caribbean and in the Pacific. Graham says, he thinks those airstrikes might soon be expanded to strikes on land. I think President Trump's made a decision that Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, is an indicted drug trafficker that is time for him to go, that Venezuela and Colombia have been safe havens for narco-terrorists for too long.

He was speaking to CBS's Face the Nation. Graham describes such an escalation as a real possibility. French authorities continue to question two men suspected of breaking into the Louvre Museum and stealing more than $100 million worth of jewels. The two were arrested over the weekend with the help of a security video and DNA samples as NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports from Paris. French media are reporting that the men were under surveillance for several days and are known to police.

The Paris prosecutor confirmed one of the men was picked up at Charles de Gaul Airport about to take a flight to Algeria. French media are also reporting that more than 150 samples of the men's fingerprints and DNA were discovered on items left behind at the scene of the crime, such as a circular saw, a reflective vest,

a motorcycle helmet, a jerry can, gloves, a walkie-talkie, and Empress Eugenie's diamond and emerald crown that was dropped. By law, the police can hold them in 96 hours before they must be charged. The other two accomplices and the jewels are still missing.

Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris. This is NPR News from Washington. President Trump has arrived in Japan, the latest stop on his current trip to Asia. The president announced U.S. trade agreements with four Southeast Asian nations during his visit to Malaysia, the first stop on his trip. Trump says he hopes to add a trade deal with China. The president is scheduled to hold a summit with China's president, Xi Jinping, on Thursday. As families in the U.S. and around the world have fewer children, economists say that trend is reshaping parts of the global economy. As NPR's Brian Mann reports in many places, populations are aging fast and beginning to decline.

Most experts agree the shift to fewer kids is being driven by good things, including education and economic gains for women and plummeting teen pregnancy rates. But there are also challenges. Economists say families in all the countries that drive global GDP from China to China to China, Germany to the U.S. are now having too few children to maintain a stable population and robust workforce. Lant Pritchett is at the London School of Economics. It's hard to maintain the dynamism of the economy. You can't get people to do all kinds of work from electricians to plumbers to everything else. Many experts say the trend toward fewer children in the U.S. and around the world will continue, a pattern that's already straining pension and health care systems in some

countries as populations age and shrink. Brian Mann and PR News. Major League Baseball's World Series is shifting from Toronto to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles for tonight's game three. The Dodgers and the Blue Jays are tied at a game apiece in the best of seven fall classic. I'm Dave Mattingly, NPR News in Washington.