NPR News: 10-20-2025 10PM EDT

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton.

The Senate again failed to pass a bill to temporarily fund the government today.

The bill has fallen short 11 times.

Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are demanding Congress extend premiums for Obamacare health plans set to expire at the end of the year.

Republicans seem happy not to work, happy not to negotiate, happy to let health care premiums spike for over 20 million working and middle-class Americans.

Republicans like Senate Majority Leader John Thune say they're willing to talk about health care with Democrats, but they need to help reopen the government first.

I have made it clear from the beginning that Republicans are willing to have a discussion about how to address it.

In fact, I'm perfectly willing to guarantee Democrats a vote.

But none of that is going to happen until Democrats reopen the government.

Meanwhile, the House has not held votes since it advanced the short-term funding bill last month.

Many workers workers at the U.S.

Census Bureau are among the hundreds of thousands of workers furloughed without pay as the government shutdown continues.

As NPR's Hansi Lo Wong reports, some of them are also fighting the latest round of federal layoffs in court.

Ken Beiersdorf built a 20-year career at the Census Bureau's contact center in Tucson, Arizona, conducting phone interviews for surveys that produced the monthly jobs numbers and other key statistics until the shutdown began.

I'm not sure how we're going to be paying our bills in the future.

He and about 100 of his coworkers got layoff notices because of the Trump administration, says a lack of funding.

If you care anything about the statistics you're gathering, you need to fund those programs and put people to work that can collect those reliably.

Unions led by the American Federation of Government Employees sued, and a judge has now put layoffs for those workers on hold.

But Beyerdorf says if those layoffs go through, he's worried the accuracy of the data the country relies on to make decisions will take a major hit.

Anzi LuWong, NPR News.

A massive outage at Amazon's web services division wreaked havoc on websites and apps across the internet today.

Amazon says it's largely fixed, although some disruptions might linger, as NPR's Jacqueline Diaz reports.

Early in the morning, users started reporting problems with popular online games Fortnite and Roblox, and with financial apps like Robin Hood and Venmo, just to name a few.

The root to many of these problems appears to have been with Amazon Web Service.

The cloud computing service lets users store and manage data online.

Amazon says an error in a software update to a database service called DynamoDB caused this widespread disruption.

Experts say the incident raises questions about the internet's reliance on a small number of major cloud providers.

And we should note, Amazon is a financial supporter of NPR and it pays to distribute some of NPR's content.

Jacqueline Diaz, NPR News.

U.S.

stocks largely rose today.

You're listening to NPR News from Washington.

President Trump says the U.S.

could buy beef from Argentina in an attempt to bring down prices for American consumers.

Beef prices have been stubbornly high, partly because of drought and reduced imports from Mexico due to a flesh-eating pest.

Trump also has been trying to support Argentina's economy ahead of elections, seen as a referendum for his embattled ally there, President Javier Malay.

The witch city of Salem, Massachusetts, has rallied to keep a national park visitor visitor center and its bathrooms open.

Andrea Shea of member station WBUR reports it's the peak tourism season there.

Salem's month-long Haunted Happenings Festival attracts a million visitors in October.

A lot of them head to the National Park Service Visitor Center for information and bathrooms.

It's one of the few places that you could have a real bathroom and not have to go to a port-a-potty.

When the government shut down, closed the center, Annie Harris, CEO of the non-profit Essex Heritage, that helps staff and run the facility, sent out a flurry of emails, including to the mayor.

I think we could maybe keep it open.

Are you interested?

The Park Service agreed to let Salem reopen the center if the community covered costs through Halloween weekend.

Within 48 hours, businesses and nonprofits raised $18,000, keeping the center open until November 2nd.

For NPR News, I'm Andrea Shea in Salem.

Homes and streets across India were illuminated to celebrate Diwali today.

Millions are celebrating the Hindu Festival.

It marks the victory of light over darkness.

This is NPR News from Washington.