NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-02-2025 7PM EST

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant says SNAP food assistant benefits could restart as soon as midweek. President Trump wants to make sure that people get their food benefits. So it could be done by Wednesday. Could be. Speaking there on CNN's State of the Union, this after two federal judges last week told the Trump administration, it has to use billions of dollars in reserve money for the more than 40 million people on SNAP. Bessent says the administration won't appeal the rulings,

but the suspension of SNAP benefits means food banks are getting slammed with people. At a food pantry in the Bronx, volunteer Joseph Rettler tells the Associated Press that the lines are getting very long. It's real bad now. It's so much people, it goes all the way around the block to McDonald's. It's like a whole square block. We're talking about close to two or three blocks all around the whole block. Snap benefits ended for millions of people yesterday.

President Trump ordered the Pentagon to plan for possible military action in Nigeria in response to violent attacks that Trump says amounts to the persecution of Christians there. Nigeria pushed back on the allegations saying both Christians and Muslims are affected. And peers Emmanuel Aiken Woto has more. President Trump warned that if Nigeria continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S. military would intervene to, quote, completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are, are committing these horrible atrocities. A Nigerian government spokesperson said

assistance-fighting insurgents was welcome, as long as its sovereignty was respected. This week, the US designated Nigeria a country of particular concern for failing to protect Christians. It centres on attacks in north and central Nigeria where mass killings by herders against farming communities have displaced millions of people. The plight of majority Christian communities have led US lawmakers to campaign for their protection. Emmanuel Akimotu, NPR News, Eagles. Wildland firefighting watchdog groups say federal land managers have fallen behind in wildfire prevention work in the country's forests. And Piers Kirk Sigler has more. The group grassroots wildland firefighters combed through U.S. Forest Service data and found specific wildfire

prevention projects like thinning, overgrown forests and prescribed intentionally set fires, are down 38 percent compared to the last four years. This is significant because the president's executive orders after the deadly Los Angeles fires called for a ramp up in this work, as well as logging on public forests. But the report shows the agency hasn't had enough staff due to doge cuts, and it's getting exacerbated by the government shutdown. In statements to NPR, federal agency officials have defended the broader Trump cuts, saying they're part of making the federal government more efficient. Kirk Sigler NPR News, Boise. US futures contracts are trading higher at this hour. All three major indices up around

two-tenths of a percent. You're listening. to NPR News from Washington. More than 12,000 health researchers and leaders are gathered in Washington, D.C. For American Public Health Association's annual meeting that got underway today, and Pierce Ping Huang reports they'll be charting a path through what they see

as a crisis in their field. Dr. George's Benjamin has seen a lot of crises in the almost 25 years. He's led the American Public Health Association. But this one is different. I think public health is under attack by our own federal government more than anything else. The Trump administration is making deep cuts to staffing and funding for the existing health system, moves Benjamin say are, quote, totally destroying the modern health system.

And at the same time, the Make America Healthy Again movement is on the rise. We all want to have healthier food. We want to give people to be more physically active. But we want to do that based on what we know to be the best evidence that we have at the time. At this week's meeting, Benjamin says the field will be taking stock of the massive changes, and charting a path to rebuilds. Ping Huang, NPR News. Belgium's defense chief is threatening to shoot down the next drones that enter his country's airspace. This, after unidentified drones were spotted for the second night in a row,

hovering over a military base in northeastern Belgium that houses U.S. nuclear weapons. This is the third base in Belgium, where drones have been cited in recent weeks, and officials say efforts to track the drones by helicopters and cars have so far been unsuccessful. U.S. futures contracts are trading higher at this hour. I'm Janine Herbst, NPR News, in Washington.