NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-08-2025 4AM EST

Episode Date: November 8, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Wilman. The Supreme Court has granted an emergency appeal from the Trump administration to block a court order to fully fund SNAP food benefit payments. The payments are being halted this month because of the continuing government shutdown. The High Court is temporarily pausing the order until an appeals court rules on whether to issue a more lasting pause. Some states, meanwhile, have opted not to wait for the federal government. Molly Ingram of Member Station, WSHU, says Connecticut plans to reload EBT cards next week. In Connecticut, more than 360,000 residents rely on SNAP. The federal government usually doles out $72 million for the program in the state,

but hasn't this month because of the shutdown. Governor Ned Lamont says he's done waiting for the Fed to step in and that it's, quote, unacceptable to use Americans and their access to food as political pawns. They can't make up their money. we've made up our mind. We're going to take care of the people on SNAP. The money will come from the state's rainy day fund. Lamont says he plans to keep SNAP funded until the shutdown ends. For NPR news, I'm Molly Ingram in Fairfield, Connecticut. The FAA has begun reducing flights at airports by 10%. The move is in response to the federal government shutdown that's been going on for more

than a month. Officials say more and more air traffic controllers and TSA officers are calling out sick. They've been working without pay, but Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says that travelers should still keep booking flights. The government can open back up. We could have controllers coming to work. And then you're going to be stock booking a week before you want to travel and you're going to pay way more money and you're going to be angry. So book it now. The Belgian government is working on an agreement to spend more than $50 million to combat drones that have been disrupting that country's airspace. From Brussels, Terry Schultz reports that many passenger and passengers, cargo flights have had to be cancelled because of the problems.

There hasn't been any official conclusion as to who's responsible for the drones which have been hovering over Belgian military sites, including one housing U.S. nuclear weapons, and causing the country's main airport in Brussels and a major cargo airport to close multiple times. Germany and Sweden have suffered the same kind of disruptions in recent weeks. European Commission spokesman Thomas Rednier says assigning blame is up to national governments, but that one thing is sure. This is hybrid warfare, and Europe is at risk. Both the European Union and NATO are allocating additional funding and resources to build up their counter-dron capabilities.

Belgium's defense minister, Teo Franken, says police now have both authority and orders to shoot the drones down. For NPR News, I'm Terry Schultz in Brussels. Wall Street finished down for the week, the first weekly loss in the past month. The Dow finished up on the day, though, by 74 points or 0.16%. The SMP 500 also finished up slightly while the NASDAQ closed down 49 points. This is NPR News. The president of Doctors Without Borders says that the levels of malnutrition and people fleeing El Fasher in Sudan are the worst he's seen in a career spent working in conflict zones. Kate Bartlett has our reports.

Since the city of Al Fasher 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. McDonald-Douglas has asked UPS and FedEx to ground their fleet of MD-11 aircraft following a deadly crash earlier this week in Louisville that killed at least 14 people. Both shipping companies said they will conduct a thorough safety review of the aircraft before putting them back in the air. McDonald-Douglas merged with Boeing in 1997. A federal judge in Oregon says the Trump administration failed to meet legal requirements for deploying National Guard troops to Portland early this year, Following a three-day trial, the judge ruled Friday that the administration did not show that it was unable to enforce the law with regular forces. And he said it did not establish that there was a rebellion or danger of a rebellion. I'm Dale Wilman, NPR News.

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