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NPR News Now

NPR News: 12-18-2025 5PM EST

18 Dec 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 17.297 Unknown

Support for NPR and the following message come from the estate of Joan B. Kroc, whose bequest serves as an enduring investment in the future of public radio and seeks to help NPR produce programming that meets the highest standards of public service in journalism and cultural expression.

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18.273 - 21.758 Ryland Barton

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

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Chapter 2: What new restrictions is Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. proposing regarding gender-affirming care?

22.139 - 29.19 Ryland Barton

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is proposing new restrictions that would effectively ban gender-affirming care for minors.

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29.53 - 40.266 Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

So-called gender-affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people. This is not medicine. It is malpractice.

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40.466 - 55.886 Ryland Barton

The sweeping proposals contradict the recommendations of major medical groups. They include cutting off federal Medicaid and Medicare funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to children. The proposals must go through a lengthy rulemaking process and are likely to face legal challenges.

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56.407 - 68.192 Ryland Barton

States around the country are looking at ways to keep health care costs low in the face of expiring health care subsidies. Jad Khalil of VPM News reports on where Virginia's incoming governor wants the support to be targeted.

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68.324 - 83.664 Jad Khalil

Abigail Spanberger ran on lowering the cost of living. On Thursday, she showcased over a dozen policy proposals to do that. Among them is a proposal to keep people in the health care marketplace. The idea is that if it's only higher risk people in the insurance pool, premiums go up for everyone.

83.844 - 96.66 Unknown

This program, with its targeted efforts to stabilize, at least here in Virginia, the ACA marketplace, given the chaos we're seeing out of Washington, is meant to counter those efforts.

96.64 - 114.829 Jad Khalil

A health care bill passed through the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday, but didn't include extensions of the subsidies. The affordability proposal Spanberger shared addressed energy and housing costs, too. She faces the challenge of risks to Virginia's economy due to federal workforce cuts. For NPR News, I'm Jad Khalil in Richmond.

115.089 - 129.54 Ryland Barton

Tensions are mounting between the Trump administration and South Africa over a U.S. program to resettle white Afrikaners in the United States. As NPR's Michelle Kellerman reports, the U.S. is accusing South Africa of harassing and doxing one of its employees.

129.56 - 152.543 Michelle Kellerman

Trump administration officials are fuming over a recent raid by South Africa on a processing center for Afrikaners applying to come to the U.S. The South Africans say they were enforcing their immigration laws and plan to deport some of the Kenyans who were working at the center in Johannesburg with the U.S. without proper South African work visas. During the raid, two U.S.

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