NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-01-2025 8PM EDT

Episode Date: November 2, 2025

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Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theshmit.org. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. Today is the first day of the lapse in funding for the SNAP food assistance program. About 42 million Americans around the country rely on it for help. In Houston, more than four, 400,000 households will be affected. Houston Public Media's Sydney Jackson has more. With her two dogs Luna and Makito in tow, Itso Perez waited in her car for roughly three hours

at a Houston Food Bank distribution site Saturday morning. Born with Spina Bifida, the stay-at-home wife got a call telling her that her benefits had been cut off. There are other people that cannot work or they have disabilities also, not just other people that they're receiving, but there's other people that are neat

in probably more in need that I, that I am. Two federal judges have ordered the Trump administration to use emergency funding for SNAP, but it's unclear when benefits could be resumed. For NPR News, I'm Sydney Jackson. Open enrollments started today on health care.gov, the Affordable Care Act marketplace. That's where people who don't get health insurance through their job or through a public program like Medicare or Medicaid shop for coverage.

And millions of people are facing sticker. shock. And here Selena Simmons-Duffin has more on what people enrolling this year need to know. Their premiums might be significantly higher. And that is because something called enhanced subsidies that Congress first passed in 2021 are expiring. And that extra help to buy health insurance is something that millions of people have relied on in the last few years. In fact, 24 million people have these plants. They're small business owners, farmers, ranchers. And as open enrollment begins this year, the federal government is shut down, and these subsidies are a central issue. And Pierre Salina Simmons-Duffin reporting. As fighting continues in Sudan, the UN is warning

that hundreds may have been killed during the capture of a key city by a paramilitary group. Michael Koloki reports a number of countries are calling for a truce in the conflict. The United Nations says that the paramilitary group rapid support forces or RSF reportedly killed civilians and unarmed fighters during its capture of the city of Elfashir. The Sudanese army recently withdrew from Elfashir, its last stronghold in the Darfur region in the west of the country. The RSF has besieged the city for the past several months. Fighting between the RSF and the Sudanese armed forces has been going on for more than two years now. Meanwhile, today, foreign ministers from the United Kingdom, Germany and Jordan

issued a joint call for an immediate ceasefire to the fighting. The warring factions in the conflict have created a humanitarian crisis with thousands of civilians killed and millions displaced. For NPR News, I'm Michael Koloki in Nairobi. Daylight saving time ends tomorrow morning at 2 a.m. for most of the country and we return to Eastern Standard Time. That means clock should be set back one hour before you go to bed tonight. This is NPR News.

The 2025 baseball season comes down to one final game, just getting underway now in Toronto. The Blue Jays face off against the defending champs, L.A. Dodgers, in Game 7 of the World Series. Steve Butterman has more from Toronto. Almost everywhere you look here in downtown Toronto, there are Blue Jay signs, Blue Jay logos, and people wearing team jerseys and hats.

Toronto came close to staging a ninth inning comeback in game six last night. The Blue Jays put the tying runs on second and third with nobody out, but the Dodgers held on. Toronto manager, John Schneider, sounding like a fan, says he can't wait for the ultimate baseball game. It's going to be fun. It's going to be three or four or five hours of mayhem and great baseball.

Pitching for Toronto will be future Hall of Famer, 41-year-old Max Scherzer. He pitched in the last World Series game 7 in 2019 for the Washington Nationals. For NPR News, I'm Steve Futterman at the World Series in Toronto. New Mexico today became the first state in the country to offer free child care to all residents, regardless of income. Officials say it's an effort to boost the state's economy and raise education and child welfare levels that are ranked the worst in the U.S. New Mexico is creating a $12.7 million low-interest loan fund to build and expand child care facilities. It's also raising reimbursement rates to providers that pay staff a minimum of $18 an hour. New York mayoral candidates over on Mandani has proposed universal free child care. I'm Janine Herbst, and you're listening to NPR News from Washington.

Washington.