NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-15-2025 7AM EDT

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

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In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people, helping you understand why distant events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, on Corva Coleman, the Gaza ceasefire, is being tested. Hamas has returned eight bodies to Israel. The Israeli military says today that testing on one of those bodies shows that it was not that of a hostage. Israel is now closing one crossing into Gaza that will limit how much relief aid can reach Palestinians.

And Pierre's Daniel Estrin says more issues have developed with the ceasefire. It's being tested greatly. There have been reports of Israeli fire yesterday, killing at least six people, fire as well today. Israel said yesterday it was firing on militants. trying to cross out of the ceasefire zone. We're also seeing this power battle with Hamas fighting in the streets shooting up rival clans

in this battle for power. NPR's Daniel Estrin reporting from Tel Aviv. The federal government shutdown is more than two weeks old. The Senate failed again last night to agree on a new spending bill that could have ended it. President Trump has been firing

federal workers during the shutdown. A federal judge holds a hearing today in California on a lawsuit challenging Trump's actions. Meanwhile, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has gutted some fair housing offices across the country. NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports more than 300 HUD employees have been laid off. A HUD spokesperson says the layoffs are to align programs with the Trump administration's priorities. The agency did not provide specifics, but a union tally finds nearly a third of those cut are people who investigate allegations of housing discrimination.

HUD union steward Paul Osadabe says they do. labor-intensive work that requires expertise. Looking through documents, interviewing people, sometimes going out to visit properties. And without that, it's not possible to enforce the fair housing laws Congress has passed. He says the layoffs appear to gut some entire offices that come on top of previous major cuts to HUD's fair housing staff, including an attempt to fire Osse Debe. Jennifer Lutton, NPR News, Washington. For the sixth time this year, U.S. forces have destroyed a boat in waters off of Venezuela. President Trump is saying the people aboard the vessel were criminals, but he did not offer evidence of this. NPR's Quill Lawrence has more.

President Trump posted on social media that U.S. intelligence confirmed a small vessel in international waters off the Venezuelan coast was carrying drugs. A dark video released with the post shows a boat hit with a flash from above and then burning. Trump said six men aboard were killed, he called them narco-terrorists. The White House maintains it's at war with Venezuelan drug traffickers and may kill them in strikes like this because they are unlawful enemy combatants. Critics in Congress say the president cannot declare wars without their consent and that in this case the president is asserting a right to kill anyone he declares an enemy with no due process of law. Quill Lawrence NPR News. You're listening to NPR. New testing data

show that when it comes to reading, the nation's third through eighth graders are still mired in a pandemic-era slump. NPR's Corey Turner reports. The data comes from NWEA, a K-12 testing and research organization, and its spring 2025 map growth assessment, a suite of tests taken by millions of students in thousands of schools across the U.S. In reading, students across most grade levels are still performing at or even below pandemic lows. NWEA said this stagnation is consistent. regardless of race, ethnicity, or school poverty level. In math, the news was only slightly better.

Achievement either held steady or, in some grades, improved slightly, though nearly all grades remain behind the performance levels of kids in those same grades back in 2019. Corey Turner, NPR News. A federal judge has scolded the Trump administration over disaster relief funding for states. Judge William Smith says President Trump is still trying to, quote, bully states into accepting his immigrant. enforcement actions in order to get federal money to pay for disasters. The judge had previously told the Trump administration to stop it. Meanwhile, conditions in parts of western Alaska remained dire.

The remnants of a typhoon hit Alaska last weekend. One person was killed. Two more are missing in heavy surf and flooding. Alaska officials say that some people had to cling to debris as their home washed away. Hundreds of people fled their homes to shelter in a local school. but Western Alaska officials say the school conditions are not livable either. I'm Corva Coleman, NPR News.