NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-04-2025 7AM EST

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has died. He was 84 years old. NPR's Don Gagne looks back at Cheney's long tenure as a Washington power player. Dick Cheney grew up in Nebraska, flunked out of Yale, but eventually headed back to school. By age 34, he was chief of staff to President Gerald Ford. He won a congressional seat in Wyoming and later was Defense Secretary to President George H.W. Bush. as CEO of the energy firm Halliburton, Cheney was named George W. Bush's running mate. He was an unusually influential vice president and an unwavering proponent of an aggressive U.S. military policy following the 9-11 attacks that included going to war in Iraq to confront Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were ever found. Cheney, though, was unrepentant to the end. Don Gagne and B.R. News.

It's election day. Polls have opened in Virginia, where voters are choosing the state's next governor. From member station VPM news, Jad Khalil, has more. Democrat Abigail Spanberger and Republican Winsom Earl Sears are running to be Virginia's next governor. Earl Sears has been lieutenant governor since 2021. That's when current governor Glenn Yonkin was elected after running on a platform of rejecting COVID restrictions and criticism of how race was taught in schools. That was a Republican sweep. and in keeping with Virginians' tendency to reject governors who are in the president's political party at the time. That logic is helpful for Spanberger, a former congresswoman and CIA officer.

Looming over the race, too, is the government shutdown and reductions in force for federal workers. Virginia's home to hundreds of thousands of government employees. For NPR News, I'm Jad Khalil and Richmond. This is day 35 of the federal government shutdown. It now equals the longest ever shutdown in U.S. history. There's no open sign that Congress will agree on a spending bill to end it. Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins says she is hopeful that ongoing bipartisan negotiations will end the shutdown. Maine Public Radio's Kevin Miller has more.

Collins says a group of Democrats and Republicans are trying to, quote, chart a path forward to end the month-long impasse. One potential compromise, she says, would involve the Senate quickly taking up legislation to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies once government reopens. Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, hopes of vote ending the shutdown will happen by weeks end. I don't want to create false hopes out there, but that is based on discussions that I've had with numerous Democrats as recently as last night, as well as with my Republican colleagues. Republican and Democratic leaders would have to endorse any deal. For NPR news, I'm Kevin Miller. On Wall Street and pre-market trading, stock futures are lower. This is NPR. Surgeons have transplanted another genetically modified pig kidney

into a patient. The hope is to help solve the chronic shortage of human organs for transplantation. NPR's Rob Stein has the story on the latest development in this research. Doctors at NYU-Langone Health in New York performed the operation, implanting a kidney from a pig that had been genetically modified to try to make it compatible for humans. The transplant was the first operation to be performed in the first carefully designed study approved by the Food and Drug Administration to test modified pig organs. Doctors previously performed a handful of operations that implanted modified pig kidneys and hearts into people, but those transplants were done outside of a formal study. They all eventually failed. Researchers remain

hopeful, however, that genetically engineered pig organs could eventually succeed. Rob Stein NPR News. A typhoon is crashed into the Central Philippines, sending tens of thousands of people inland to safety. At least three people have been killed in the severe weather. Authorities are reporting significant flooding. Officials in Vietnam say they're preparing for the typhoon to reach them next. Officials say the typhoon is strengthening. Meanwhile, the government of Jamaica has increased its death toll from last week's hurricane to at least 32 people. Hurricane Melissa crashed into the the Caribbean island a week ago, its top sustained winds were 185 miles per hour. The storm killed people elsewhere in the region, including in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It's NPR. Listen to this podcast sponsor-free on Amazon Music with a prime membership or any podcast app by subscribing to NPR NewsNow Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.