NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-25-2024 6PM EDT

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

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Hey there, it's Ian and Mike. And on the How to Do Everything podcast from the team at Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, we will answer any question you have, no matter how ridiculous. Like, maybe you want to get a haircut in space, and you're not sure how. Astronaut Frank Rubio has had a haircut in space. We plan for everything, right? And so it's not a pretty haircut for sure, but it's functional. Listen to the How to Do Everything podcast from NPR. Live from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear.

Well, the former President Trump and Vice President Harris are campaigning in Texas today. Harris will be campaigning tonight with Colin Allred, who's taking on Senator Ted Cruz as Democrats try to flip the seat blue. Trump meanwhile is in Austin recording a podcast with Joe Rogan and Beerus Deepa-Shivaram reports. Harris called out Trump for targeting immigrants by calling America the garbage can of the world. She said it was an example of how Trump, quote,

belittles the country. This is someone who is a former president of the United States, who has a bully pulpit. And this is how he uses it, to tell the rest of the world that somehow the United States of America is trash. Trump repeated that rhetoric in Austin, calling the U.S. a dumping ground and saying Texas is quote, ground zero for illegal immigration, which he referred to as a quote, border invasion. Deepa Sivaram, NPR News, Houston.

President Biden traveled to Arizona today where he apologized in person for some of the worst atrocities carried out against Native Americans by the U.S. government. Speaking about the abuses and deaths of Native children, the government run boarding schools that for decades forcibly separated children from their parents. Biden called it a blot on American history and a sin on our soul. Democrats hope the president's visit to the Gila River Indian communities land on the outskirts of Phoenix will provide a lift for the Harris campaign in that key battleground state. The man who helped anchor the sound of the psychedelic jam-band The Grateful Dead has

died bassist Phil Lesh provided some of the soaring harmonies on the group's most popular songs. As a founding member of the group, he also co-wrote songs including St. Stephen and Dark Star. Phil Lesh was 84 years old. The Biden administration has unveiled its latest effort to reduce or wipe out debt for millions of federal student loan borrowers. Here's NPR's Cory Turner. This is Biden's third big try at student loan relief. The Supreme Court killed the first

one. Another that would have helped people who owe more than they originally borrowed is tied up in the courts. And now the Education Department has proposed a set of rules to offer relief to borrowers experiencing what it calls financial hardship, like having to care for a loved one with chronic illness or struggling in the aftermath of a natural disaster. These would be borrowers who, the department predicts, are highly likely to default on their loans within two years, about 8 million people, by the department's math. The rule won't be finalized until next year and, like previous efforts, is almost certain to be challenged in court. Corey Turner, NPR News.

Stocks gave up at least some of their earlier gains to close generally lower on Wall Street to wind down the trading week. The Dow fell 259 points to 42,114. The Nasdaq was up 103 points. The S&P 500 fell a point. You're listening to NPR. Palestinian health officials say Israeli strikes killed at least 38 people in southern Gaza today. That includes a large extended family, 13 of whom were children. In northern Gaza health

officials say Israeli forces raided a hospital there where the military's renewed its offensive against Hamas and aid groups are sounding the alarm over dire humanitarian conditions. The number of people sickened as a result of McDonald's quarter-pounder hamburgers has now risen to 75. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says an outbreak of E. coli has spread to at least 13 states, with 22 people now hospitalized. Officials say they're focusing on raw, slivered onions used in some McDonald's hamburgers.

So far, one person has died as a result of the outbreak. An Old Norse saga tells of a dead man hurled into a well in the 12th century reporting Ari Daniels as DNA suggests what this person may have looked like and where he came from. Excavations of the well revealed a man's skeleton, possibly that of the person described in the saga. Archaeologists and evolutionary genomicists teamed up to extract enough DNA from the root of one of the teeth to sequence the individual's genome. Michael Martin is at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. We were able to deduce that he was a male. We could say that he was very likely to have blue eyes,

blonde hair, and an intermediate skin tone, and that his ancestry traces back to a very specific county in southern Norway. Martin says the genomic analysis adds new detail to the centuries-old saga, a story that may have its moments of exaggeration, but that is, overall, rooted in fact. For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel. This is NPR.