NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-13-2025 9AM EST

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington on Krova Coleman, the federal government shutdown is over now that Congress has passed short-term spending legislation. The House approved the bill last night. That happened after an independent and seven Democrats agreed to vote with Republicans in the U.S. Senate earlier this week. In exchange, they want a promise from Republican leaders to hold a Senate vote next month. It will be on a Democratic bill aimed at renewing subsidies for health care insurance premiums. is for policies through the Affordable Care Act. NPR's Barbara Sprunt says its success is not clear. Looking to see how Senate Democrats crafted bill to address the subsidies, can they do it in a way that brings enough Republicans on board?

If they're successful, they'll start the year with a policy victory. And if Republicans don't support it, Democrats still have what they say is a winning issue, health care, to campaign on. NPR's Barbara Sprunt reporting. But even if the Senate does pass, the Democratic Health Care subsidy bill, it's not clear that the Republican-led House would even take up the measure. Although the shutdown is over, the federal government is still continuing to slow air traffic. It has been reduced by 6%. Officials say it will hold there

until more air traffic controllers are able to return to work. Congressional Democrats are warning the nation's governors that federal immigration officials are accessing data from people's driver's licenses. NPR's Jude Jaffe Block has more. A group of 40 Democratic senators and representatives sent a letter Wednesday to 19 governors from their party, urging them to block ICE's access to their residence driver's license data and photos to stop the Trump administration from using them from what the lawmakers call, quote, unjustified politicized actions. States share their residence driver's license data with each other and law enforcement across the U.S. and Canada through a nonprofit called NLETs. The lawmakers say ICE and Homeland Security investigators

have made hundreds of thousands of queries through NLETs in the past year. Five states had already blocked ICE's access. ICE did not return NPR's request for comment. Jude Jaffe Block, NPR News. Robotaxi Company Waymo is expanding its service to include freeway rides in three major cities. They include San Francisco. From member station KALW, Sunni College. The Autonomous Taxi Service began operating on Bay Area Freeway's Wednesday morning, expanding its service in the region to San Jose as well. Waymo is also adding freeway routes to Phoenix and Los Angeles. Waymo says freeway routes will initially be offered to riders who have early access to Waymo's

advanced features before they are gradually offered to all. The company says it's planning to expand service to other cities over time, including Atlanta and Austin. For NPR news, I'm Sunni Khalid in San Francisco. You're listening to NPR. Hundreds of people have been evacuated from the city of Weatherford, Oklahoma, because of an ammonia leak. Dozens of people have been hospitalized. Weatherford is about 70 miles west of Oklahoma City. Authorities say the ammonia leaked last night from a tanker truck in a hotel parking lot.

They're monitoring the air quality. Schools in Weatherford, Oklahoma, are canceled for the day. People in the U.S. are rapidly becoming less religious, according to a new poll from Gallup. NPR's Jason DeRose reports. Over the last decade, Gallup has found a 17-point drop in the percentage of U.S. adults who say religion is an important part of their daily lives. Now, just 49% say it's key.

Gallup says that decline is among the largest it's recorded in any country over a 10-year period, and that such a large drop is rare among the 160-plus countries it studies. Chile, Turkey, and Portugal have seen similar declines. Gallup's analysis finds that only a few countries have experienced larger losses in religiosity, among them Greece, Italy, and Poland. Jason DeRos, NPR News. California is preparing for a major storm. The atmospheric river will funnel heavy rain into the state, dropping excessive rain.

Extremely heavy snow will fall in the mountains, possibly up to two feet. Wind gusts could hit around 50 miles per hour. Officials in Los Angeles have started to evacuate people in areas where wildfires burned. There's no foliage to stop flash flooding. People could get caught in mud and debris flows. This is NPR.