NPR News Now - NPR News: 07-05-2025 5PM EDT

Episode Date: July 5, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janene Hurst. In central Texas, the death toll in the flash flooding Friday has risen to at least 32, including 14 children. Meanwhile, crews continue to search for more than two dozen children missing from a summer camp. NPR's Sergio Martinez Beltran has more. I'm outside Camp Mystic in Kerrville, Texas, which was severely hit by Friday's flash floods. Part of it were washed away and the area around this place is completely destroyed. It's pretty incredible. Huge trees are down, cars are stuck on them. There are also huge boulders in the middle of the road. All of this shows how violent the waters of the Guadalupe River

were. And the search and rescue efforts are ongoing. Sergio Martinez Peltran, NPR News, Kerrville, Texas. Danielle Pletka Many of the 1,500 federally funded community health clinics that provide free or reduced cost care to more than 3 million people are at risk of closing because of the Trump administration's new tax and spending law. And Piers Yuki-Naguchi has more. About half of such centers' patients rely on Medicaid, meaning the centers do, too, for

revenue. The new law's cutbacks to that program mean many will no longer get payment and will have to close or cut back on services, according to Joe Dunn at the National Association of Community Health Centers. That, he says, will hit rural areas hard. Health centers are largely the only primary care network in the community. And so if there's a closure or a reduction in services, then it's going to be felt even more so than in maybe a suburban or urban setting. Yuki Noguchi and PR News.

The Israeli military says grenades were thrown into a distribution site in Gaza, injuring two Americans working for an aid distribution organization. And Gaza health officials say more than 70 Palestinians were killed, including dozens seeking food. And Pierce Jane Araf has more. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-based organization that uses armed military contractors to oversee food distribution, says the wounded were treated for non-life-threatening injuries. It blamed Hamas for the attack, but did not provide evidence.

Israel halted most incoming aid to Gaza in March. Then in May, amid widespread hunger there, Israel installed a new system aimed at bypassing UN agencies. The UN says hundreds of Palestinians have been killed trying to access aid around GHF sites. The Israeli military does not acknowledge numbers killed, but says following reports of civilians being harmed, it gave new instructions to its forces on lessons learned. Jane Araf, NPR News, Damascus. And you're listening to NPR News from Washington. Mammals that live up in mountainous high-altitude regions seem to have a worse sense of smell. As it turns out, they've lost key genes that are related to olfaction.

And Pyrus Nell Greenfield-Bois has more. Scientists made this unexpected discovery when they looked at the genetic codes of a bunch of high-altitude species like yaks and mountain goats and compared them to mammals that live at lower elevations. Nathan Clark is a biologist with the University of Pittsburgh. He says animals that live high up had significantly fewer olfactory receptor genes. They were consistently losing the genes that allow them to detect odorants, smelling. He and his colleagues report on their findings in the journal Current Biology.

It's unclear why the sense of smell deteriorates. He says maybe there's just less to smell in bare high altitude regions and odors don't travel well in the cold dry air. Nell Greenfield, Boyce, NPR News. Tropical Storm Chantal has formed along the southeast coast. The National Hurricane Center has posted tropical storm watches and warnings along the Carolinas. The storm has maximum sustained winds of 45 miles an hour with higher gusts, and it's moving north. Scattered showers and thunderstorms from Chantalle's outer bands are already hitting parts of the Carolina coasts, along with increasingly rough surf and dangerous rip currents.

The storm is expected to make landfall tomorrow morning in South Carolina as a weak tropical storm. I'm Janene Herbst to NPR News Now Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.