1A - The News Roundup For October 17, 2025

John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland this week.

Also, a federal judge in San Francisco halted the mass layoffs of federal workers by the Trump administration.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is now in its second week, as both sides hand over hostages and return the bodies of those captured during the conflict.

The United States continues to destroy boats off the coast of Venezuela as part of a supposed campaign against drug cartels.

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Consider This from NPR - Farmers already had it bad. The shutdown made it worse.

America’s farmers are getting walloped by the federal government shutdown.

The closing of government offices means they’ve lost access to data and loans that help keep them afloat —

Then there’s healthcare. More than a quarter of the nation’s farmers rely on the Affordable Care Act…along with the subsidies at the heart of the shutdown fight.

And add to that — the fact that farmers’ finances are taking a hit from bottom lines are also being slashed due to President Trump’s tariffs.

For generations – the federal government has worked to support American farmers. 

But as they lose access to vital loans and information.. as the trade war cuts into their bottom line… And as many face skyrocketing healthcare costs…that support seems to have all but disappeared.

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This episode was produced by Tyler Bartlam, with audio engineering by Simon-Laslo Janssen.

It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

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Planet Money - How Russia’s shadow fleet is sailing around oil sanctions

Bjarne Caesar Skinnerup works as a maritime pilot in the straits of Denmark. That means he’s used to seeing oil tankers. But after the start of the war in Ukraine, the tankers started getting weird. They were flying flags he’d never seen before. They were old, very old, though many had taken on new names. Something was off. 


He’d stumbled on a shadow fleet of hundreds of tankers ferrying sanctioned oil out of Russia … with near impunity. 

Today on the show, how those ships are transforming the global oil market and fueling the war in Ukraine. And why this all might be a financial and environmental disaster waiting to happen.


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This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Daniel Ackerman. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Kwesi Lee and Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Up First from NPR - Bolton Indicted, Trump and Zelenskyy Meeting, Rebuilding Gaza

John Bolton is indicted on 18 counts for allegedly mishandling classified information dating back to his time as national security advisor during President Trump’s first term. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with President Trump at the White House to discuss Ukraine's request for long-range missiles, Trump says he will meet with Russia's president in Hungary next. And the scale of Gaza’s reconstruction is staggering, with unexploded bombs buried in the rubble, nearly all buildings damaged or destroyed and major questions about who will lead the reconstruction.

Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.

Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Anna Yukhananov, Nick Spicer, Miguel Macias, Mohamad El Bardicy and Alice Woelfle

It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Milton Guevara.

We get engineering support from Zac Coleman. And our technical director is Stacey Abbott.

And our Executive Producer is Jay Shaylor

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Short Wave - Science Says Quitting Smoking At Any Age Is Good For The Brain

The rate of smoking cigarettes has steadily declined since the 1960s – when Congress required warnings on cigarette boxes. Research shows that people are more likely to try to quit smoking when they’re under 40. But a new study in the journal The Lancet Healthy Longevity shows that quitting later in life can still be beneficial – and could possibly lower your risk for dementia. For this and more news from the science journals, Short Wave hosts Regina G. Barber and Emily Kwong talk with All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly.

Interested in knowing more about science behind the headlines? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.

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NPR's Book of the Day - Cookbooks ‘House of Nanking’ and ‘Boustany’ honor rich family legacies through food

Today’s episode features two new cookbooks that solidify family legacies through food. First, NPR’s Ailsa Chang joins Peter and Kathy Fang for a meal at House of Nanking in San Francisco. There, they discuss the father-daughter duo’s new cookbook named after the famed family restaurant. Then, Sami Tamimi’s cookbook Boustany celebrates vegetables in Palestinian cooking. In today’s episode, the chef and author speaks with Here & Now’s Robin Young about recipes from the book, which now serve as a record of what’s been lost during starvation and war in Gaza.


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The Indicator from Planet Money - Government shutdown fallout, price floors, and AI slop against the machine

It’s … Indicators of the Week! Our weekly look at some of the most fascinating economic numbers from the news. 

On today’s episode: Frozen and canceled federal dollars, America’s intensifying tit-for-tat with China, and a sloppy trend infiltrating the music business. (With a pocket full of shells.)

Related episodes: 
China's trade war perspective 
Fighting AI with AI 

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at
plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Corey Bridges. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.


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Consider This from NPR - We may be in an AI bubble. What does that mean?

Is the AI boom an AI bubble? Wall Street and Silicon Valley increasingly think so.

This week JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said "a lot of assets" appear to be "entering bubble territory."

Earlier this month Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said the AI market was an "industrial bubble" where stock prices were "disconnected from the fundamentals" of their businesses.

But big tech shows little sign of pausing its massive investments in artificial intelligence. So how is it that A-I could change the world ... and is also maybe in a bubble?

Stanford economist Jared Bernstein, a former White House chief economic adviser and co-author of a recent New York Times op-ed on the subject, explains.

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Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

This episode was produced by Brianna Scott. It was edited by Patrick Jarenwattananon. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.


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