NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-07-2025 6PM EST

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

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Instead of letting an algorithm throw mediocre podcast recommendations at you, sign up for NPR's Pod Club newsletter. We comb through hours of audio to find the gems, the episodes that will make you gasp, cry, or crack up in a public place. Then every week we send those picks to your inbox and tell you why they're worth your time. Subscribe now at npr.org slash podclub. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton. The Trump administration says it will fully fund SNAP food benefits during the government's shutdown.

That's even as it appeals a new court order to pay for them. The federal judge admonished the administration for saying earlier it would make only partial SNAP payments. He said officials failed to consider the, quote, needless suffering that it would cause millions of people. Senate Democrats say they're offering a compromise to reopen the government. Republican Senate leader John Thune says it's a non-starter. NPR's Barbara Sprunt reports. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a proposal to reopen the government with a one-year extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits. Those credits are set to expire at the end of the year and have been central to this government shutdown.

Most Democratic senators have been holding out on voting to fund the government until Republicans agree to extend those credits. Schumer also proposed establishing a bipartisan committee to negotiate on long-term health care reforms. Republicans want to address health care subsidies after the government reopens. Any deal in the Senate would also have to pass the House, which remains out of town. Barbara Sprint and Peer News, the Capitol. The Trump administration began scaling back flights because of the government shut down today. Airports in Chicago, Atlanta, and Denver are among those with the most disruptions. The FAA is trying to reduce flights by 10% to ease pressure on unpaid air traffic controllers.

Scientists James Watson, who co-discovered the structure of DNA, has died at the age of 97. As NPR's Nell Greenfield-Boyce reports, his life was full of fame and controversy. James Watson was not yet 25 years old back in 1953 when he and Francis Crick piece together clues to figure out the chemical structure of DNA. This historic breakthrough revealed how one molecule could encode so much of life's complexity. Watson's memoir about the discovery was a bestseller, but the book and Watson got a lot of criticism. for the shoddy treatment of Rosalind Franklin, a scientist who did key lab research that Watson and Crick relied on. Watson spent his entire career advancing DNA science, but he spent his later years effectively shunned by researchers in the field he pioneered after he made prejudiced

remarks about black people, women, and others. Nell Greenfield-Boyce, NPR News. Taking up a call to overturn the landmark decision legalizing same-sex marriage was on the agenda for a closed-door meeting of the Supreme Court today. Justices are considering an appeal from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky County Clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses after the 2015 ruling. She's been trying to overturn an order for her to pay $360,000 in damages and fees to a couple she refused to issue a marriage license to. Stock indexes were mixed on Wall Street today. The S&P 500 edged up a tenth of a percent. This is NPR News. Cornell University has agreed to pay $60 million and accept the Trump administration's interpretation of civil rights laws in order to restore federal funding.

Cornell President Michael Kotlakov says the agreement restores more than $250 million in research funding that the government withheld amid investigations into alleged civil rights violations. The president of Doctors Without Borders says that with the levels of malnutrition in people fleeing El Fashehr in Sudan are the worst he's seen in a career spent working in conflict zones. Kate Bartlett reports. Since the city of Al Fasha fell to a paramilitary group, Doctors Without Borders has been treating people who fled at their health point in the nearby town of Tawila Darfur. Seven out of ten of those turning up are showing signs of starvation, Mohamed Javid Abdomonim, the newly elected international. president of the charity, told a press briefing in Johannesburg Friday. I think it's really worth highlighting these statistics quite because I've never seen anything so shocking in all my 15 years of my work.

He said 71% of children and 87% of pregnant and breastfeeding women are suffering from acute malnutrition. For NPR News, I'm Kate Bartlett in Johannesburg. Japan has resumed seafood exports to China for the first time since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster. Six metric tons of scallops from Hokkaido were shipped on Wednesday. A ban remains for seafood from Fukushima in nearby areas, but Japan is urging China to lift remaining restrictions. I'm Ryland Barton. You're listening to NPR News from Washington.