NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-13-2025 8AM EST

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, on Krova Coleman, Congress has passed a short-term spending bill and the government shutdown is now over. But the financial fallout for federal workers is not. NPR's Windsor Johnson explains why their long-awaited back pay may feel smaller than expected. When federal employees get their back pay, it will arrive as one lump sum deposit covering every mispaycheck during the shutdown. But that big payment could end up feeling like a letdown. The IRS taxes lump sum in paychecks as if the entire amount was earned in a single pay period, which can push workers into a higher withholding bracket. That means a smaller take-home deposit, at least for now. Many workers will eventually recover that money at tax time next year, but families who've been juggling bills or dipping into savings may have to wait months to see their full earnings.

And for tens of thousands of federal contractors who've also gone without compensation during the shutdown, there's no backpay. at all. Windsor Johnston, NPR News, Washington. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee released more than 20,000 pages of documents from the estate of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. This happened yesterday after Democrats on the committee highlighted three other emails that relate to President Trump. NPR Stephen Fowler says Epstein had many emails about Trump. Epstein said he had photos of Trump with girls and bikinis in his kitchen. quote, almost walking through the door, leaving his nose print on the glass as women were swimming in the pool. Reference to a girlfriend that, quote, after two years I gave to Donald.

But most of these emails were obsessively tracking Trump's assent to the presidency from 2015 to 2018. NPR Stephen Fowler reporting. The White House says these emails prove nothing other than that President Trump did nothing wrong. Trump has repeatedly called all Epstein-related accusations a hoax. Big Tech company, Google, has launched a lawsuit against an organization that it claims enables fishing and text scammers. NPR's John Rewich reports, the Internet giant says its customers and brand are being hurt. Google is targeting an enterprise it calls Lighthouse. In a court filing, it describes it as a well-organized criminal group that creates and distributed software and support for would-be cybercriminals.

Basically, it helps them make phony fishing websites and hook victims with texts. Lighthouse is based in China, and Google says it does not actually know the names of the people involved. Instead, the company is seeking a court injunction to help it dismantle the Lighthouse enterprise from the outside in, targeting other companies or entities that might be facilitating Lighthouse. Google says its logo is on many websites and website templates created by Lighthouse, and that undermines user trust in Google. Google is among NPR's financial supporters. John Rewich, NPR News.

You're listening to NPR News from one. Washington. Civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson has been hospitalized in Chicago. His Rainbow Push Coalition says he is being treated for a longstanding neurodegenerative disease. The Pleiades star cluster turns out to be part of a larger complex of stars. And P.S. Nell Greenfield Boyce reports, astronomers say these stars were all born in the same cloud of dust and gas. 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 plies, 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-Boice, NPR News. A new study finds that if you want seagulls to leave your food alone, don't ask them to stop.

You should shout at them. Researchers at the University of Exeter in England did a study with French fries to find out if this worked. They used recordings of a man's voice. who shouted, quote, no, stay away. That's my food. The researchers say they found out the louder you shout, the faster the birds will flee. You're listening to NPR News.