NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-12-2025 5PM EST

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton. After weeks of delay, Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva has been sworn in as the newest member of the House of Representatives. Her arrival comes more than 50 days after she won a special election to fill the seat last held by her late father, Congressman Raul Grijalva. Over 800,000 Arizonans have been left without access to the basic services that every constituent deserves. this is an abuse of power. One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing in of a duly elected member of Congress for political reason. As one of her first acts in Congress, Grijalva signed a petition to force a vote to release of the files related to Jeffrey Epstein. President Trump is dismissing revelations that Epstein mentioned him in emails.

The White House accuses Democrats of selectively leaking the emails. Epstein wrote in 2011 that Trump, quote, spent hours at his house with a girl who prosecutors say was a sex trafficking victim. In a separate message years later, Epstein said Trump, quote, knew about the girls. Trump denies any knowledge of Epstein's crimes. The House of Representatives is debating a measure to reopen the government. If passed, the package would need the signature of President Trump to officially end the longest shutdown in U.S. history. NPR's Sam Greenglass reports. After 43 days, the federal government is on.

track to reopen for the first time since September 30th. The record-long shutdown has resulted in federal employees missing paychecks, severe staffing shortages at the nation's airports, and confusion as people go without food assistance benefits. The House is voting on a package passed Monday by the Senate, which would temporarily fund most of the government through January and some specific agencies through next September. The deal does not extend expiring health insurance subsidies, though Democrats extracted the promise of a Senate vote on a health care measure by mid-September. The House has not done any legislative business during the entire length of the shutdown. Sam Greenglass, NPR News, Washington.

The Food and Drug Administration is creating a new way for approving cutting-edge treatments for rare diseases, NPR's Rob Stein reports. In a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, two top FDA officials describe what they call a new, quote, plausible mechanism pathway for approving treatments. Instead of requiring complicated and expensive studies testing and experimental treatment on patients, The FDA says some therapies could be approved based on other criteria. That could include evidence that the treatment can help patients by fixing the underlying cause of the disease, like a genetic defect. The approach is aimed at making it more practical to use cutting-edge technologies like gene editing to treat patients suffering from rare diseases. Rob Stein, NPR News. U.S. Stocks Closed Mixed today.

You're listening to NPR News from W.S. Stocks Closed Mixed today. Washington. Israel's president says the country must take action against what he's calling shocking and serious Jewish settler violence against Palestinians and Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank. Criticism of settler violence from top Israeli officials is usually muted. Yesterday, dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacked two Palestinian West Bank villages and clashed with Israeli soldiers.

The Turkish government says 20 soldiers died in a military cargo plane craft. near the border of Azerbaijan and Georgia yesterday. Dury Berskaren reports search teams are still looking for the bodies of two victims. The Turkish Ministry of National Defense released the names of the 20 military personnel, killed when their cargo plane crashed in Georgia's mountainous Kakheti region. It had departed from nearby Azerbaijan and was headed to northern Turkey. The dead include a father of three, a newlywed, and a soldier whose wife is expecting their first child. The 57-year-old aircraft was a C-130 Hercules, built by Lockheed Martin.

It's a mainstay of Air Forces around the world, despite its age. The manufacturer says it will assist with the investigation into the cause of the crash. The crash is Turkey's deadliest military incident in five and a half years. For NPR News, I'm Derry Buscgaren. Three paintings from public television legend Bob Ross have sold for over $600,000. The paintings are part of a collection of 30 works being sold to support public teams. TV stations affected by federal funding cuts. A piece entitled Winter's Piece painted during a 1993 episode of The Joy of Painting

Fetched $318,000. This is NPR News.