NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-23-2025 2PM EDT

Episode Date: August 23, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Nora Rahm. Health authorities in Gaza say at least eight people have died due to malnutrition since yesterday. A day after international experts declared a famine in North Gaza, NPR's Jane Rafe has more. The IPC said food shortages, malnutrition and starvation levels in Gaza City and surrounding areas have now reached famine levels after months of warnings. It blamed it partly on Israel blocking aid shipments to Gaza earlier this year and a U.S. and Israeli-backed distribution system, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, that it said did not qualify as humanitarian aid.

It found that aid at GHF sites was accessible for an average of only 23 minutes a day. Israel has barred the UN's biggest provider of aid, replacing it with food delivered at limited locations under armed guards. Gaza health authorities say more than 2,000 people, many of them children, have been killed around aid sites. The U.N. called for Israel to open its borders and allow aid groups to flood Gaza with food to prevent famine from spreading. Jane Arraf, NPR News, Amman. The Justice Department has released a transcript of an interview had conducted with Gulen Maxwell, convicted of child sex abuse, when she was the girlfriend of the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. President Trump had been a friend of Epstein, Maxwell repeatedly praised the president and said she never witnessed any inappropriate behavior.

NPR's Ryan Lucas has more. Maxwell serving a 20-year prison sentence. She would very much like a reduction in that sentence or a pardon. The one man who can deliver that is President Trump. The other thing is that, remember, a federal jury in New York heard evidence about Maxwell's role grooming girls for Epstein to sexually exploit, and they convicted her on that evidence. NPR's Ryan Lucas reporting. after that interview last month, Maxwell was transferred from a federal prison in Florida to a minimum security prison camp in Texas. Stalks got a lift yesterday when Federal Reserve

Chairman Jerome Powell hinted at a possible interest rate cut. NPR's Scott Horsley has more on the story. Powell told a gathering of economists and central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming that it could soon be time for a change in Fed policy. He stopped short of promising a rate cut at the next Fed meeting in September, but said the risk of inflation, which is still elevated, has to be weighed against signs of a weakening job market. Investors were already betting on a September rate cut, but Powell's comments made them more confident. Several big retailers warned this week that President Trump's tariffs will lead to rising prices, but so far retailers have absorbed most

of the cost those import taxes for the week the Dow jumped one and a half percent, the S&P 500 index rose a quarter percent, and the tech-heavy NASDAQ fell, six-tenths of a percent. Scott Horsley, This is NPR News, Washington. This is NPR News in Washington. The Trump administration is halting construction on a wind farm being built off the coast of Rhode Island. The Danish company that owns it says it's considering legal action. On his first day in office, President Trump suspended new offshore wind leasing and ordered a review of existing projects. He has repeatedly called wind energy unreliable and ugly. Montana wildlife managers have decided to increase this year's wolf hunting and trapping quota by more than 100 animals. Montana Public

Radio's Ellis Julian has more. Montana's Fish and Wildlife Commission authorized a statewide quota of 452 wolves. That's 118 more than last year. They say that increase is necessary to try to reduce the overall wolf population, a directive given to them by the state's Republican majority legislature. Included in that number is a regional limit for the number of wolves that can be killed in areas bordering Yellowstone National Park. That area has seen declines in wolf populations in recent years. Opponents of these changes say killing this many wolves could warrant federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. A federal court recently ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reassess threats facing wolves.

For NPR News, I'm Ellis Jew Lynn in Helena, Montana. In case you missed it, there's a new Air Guitar Champion. The three-day Air Cantar World Championships ended last night in Finland, with the winner from Finland. Competitors from 13 countries took part playing or pretending to play. an imaginary guitar, either electric or acoustic. Props and costumes were allowed, but no real instruments. A panel of performing arts professionals picked the winner who gets a real guitar's first prize. I'm Nora Rahm. NPR News in Washington.