NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-13-2025 6PM EST

Episode Date: November 13, 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. With the federal shutdown over, full snap,

Food benefits are finally being restored, but NPR's Jennifer Lutton reports anxiety over the funding pause will linger. Jacqueline Giamona and her two kids rely on SNAP for nearly all their groceries, and the past two weeks without it were tough. She says depriving low-income people of a necessity like food was an abuse of power. People are going to distrust the government, and I think people are going to be really angry about it for a long time. Advocate Crystal Fitzsimons with the Food Research and Action Center would like Congress to prevent a repeat. It does make me nervous that this could be used as a negotiating tactic again. She and others do see one positive. They say all the attention has shown just how vital snap is for so many people. Jennifer Lutton, NPR News, Washington. A federal judge heard arguments today challenging the appointment of the U.S. attorney who secured the indictments against former FBI director, James Comey, and New York Attorney General, Lettisha James. NPR's Ryan Lucas has more.

Attorneys for both James Comey and Letitia James say that interim U.S. Attorney Lindsay Halligan was unlawfully appointed. Because of that, they say, the separate indictments against Comey and James should be found invalid and dismissed. The Justice Department, meanwhile, argues that Halligan's appointment is valid and legal, and any perceived problem with it is at most, quote, a paperwork error. U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Curry was assigned to hear challenges to Halligan's appointment. Curry heard a little more than an hour. of arguments from defense attorneys and prosecutors. She did not rule from the bench, but she did say she plans to issue her ruling by Thanksgiving. Ryan Lucas NPR News, Alexandria, Virginia. Home insurance is increasingly expensive in many parts of the country, including the central U.S., NPR's Rebecca Hersher reports. The average price of property insurance in the Great Plains is significantly higher than the national average, according to a report from the Treasury Department.

Consumers in the Southern Plains states paid 45,000. percent more than average, between 2018 and 2022, the report found. That's in part because of hailstorms. Scott St. George is a climate scientist at W.T.W., a risk analysis company. You've seen some big losses coming out of hail, mostly in the U.S. Hailstorms caused an estimated $160 billion of damage to homes nationwide last year, according to the Insurance Information Institute, an industry-run think tank. Storms that produce large hail are getting more likely due to climate change. Rebecca Herscher, NPR News.

Airlines are optimistic they can resume normal operations soon once the government lifts its order to cut flights after the shutdown. The FAA says airlines won't have to cut more than 6% of flights at the 40 busiest airports because air traffic controller staffing has improved significantly. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. More than a thousand Starbucks workers are on strong. strike at 65 stores across the U.S., the action has closed some stores on Starbucks's Red Cup Day, which is typically one of the company's busiest days of the year. Starbucks says fewer than 4% of its U.S. stores are unionized, and sales were exceeding

its expectations this morning. The Pleiades Star Cluster turns out to be part of a larger complex of stars that stretches across the night sky. As NPR's Nell Greenfield-Boase reports, astronomers say these stars were all born in the same cloud of dust and gas about a hundred million years ago. The Pleiades is also known as the Seven Sisters, but even if you look with just binoculars, this cluster clearly contains a lot more than seven stars. Luke Bauma is with Carnegie Science in Pasadena, California.

When you look at the core of the Pleiades, it's sort of like looking at the tip of an iceberg, right? You only see the top of something that's much more massive and in this case distributed over the night sky. He and some colleagues use data from three. different observatories to trace the motion and chemical compositions of stars, letting them find more than 3,000 related stars that have similar ages and makeups and that used to be closer together. Nell Greenfield-Boyce, NPR News. Doritos and Cheetos are getting a makeover.

PepsiCo says it's launching toned-down versions of its bright orange snacks that won't have any artificial colors or flavors. The new chips are set to hit store shelves on December 1st. I'm Ryland Barton. This is NPR News from Washington.