NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-25-2024 9AM EDT

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

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Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at autographcollection.com. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korova Coleman. The presidential candidates will both campaign in Texas today. Former President Donald Trump will stump with Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz. Vice President Harris will campaign with Cruz's opponent, Democratic Congressman Colin Allred

and music icon Beyoncé. Harris continues to criticize Trump for alleged comments he made praising Hitler. These comments were first reported by The Atlantic. Campaigning in Atlanta last night, Harris says the alleged comments are disturbing. Take a moment to think about what that means. That Trump said, quote, Hitler did some good things. And that Trump wished he had generals like Hitler's who would be loyal to Trump and not to America's Constitution. Trump is vehemently denying the comments published by The Atlantic. He told Fox News that the reporter made up the story.

He made a statement that I'm like Hitler. It just couldn't be further from the truth. It's just the opposite, actually. Trump has previously praised dictators and said if elected, he would deploy armed forces against American protesters and political opponents. The high cost of housing is a factor for many U.S. voters in this election. NPR's Windsor Johnston reports that's very true in key swing states such as in the Sun Belt.

Casey Dawkins is a professor of urban studies and planning at the University of Maryland. The candidates have different approaches when it comes to easing the high cost of housing, but he says they're putting forth some similar ideas. They're both mentioning the importance of trying to incentivize local governments to adopt more innovative regulatory practices and to sort of remove the regulatory restrictions on housing. You both mentioned that. Both mentioned sort of opening up federal lands to housing construction.

Demand for housing continues to outpace supply in the U.S., driving up prices. Many Gen Z voters in particular say home ownership is currently out of the reach. Windsor-Johnston NPR News. An Ohio judge has struck down the state's abortion ban as unconstitutional. From Ohio Public Media, Sarah Donaldson reports Ohio voters enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution. Sarah Donaldson, Ohio Public Media, News 8. Passed in 2019 and called the heartbeat bill by its backers, the Ohio law would ban abortion

procedures statewide after about six weeks of pregnancy. Now that law has been permanently blocked by a county judge who writes, quote, the state cannot properly undermine this right to an abortion. Advocates call it a momentous ruling, but Gabe Mann with the group Abortion Forward says there's still work to be done. We're absolutely looking to see if it gets appealed. And we've been talking to voters about that this entire year. Anti-abortion groups call the amendment

to enshrine access to the procedure extreme and harmful. For NPR News, I'm Sarah Donaldson in Columbus, Ohio. This is NPR. Health officials in Gaza say Israeli strikes in southern Gaza have killed at least 38 Palestinians in the city of Hanunis. The health officials say many victims are women and children. The Israeli military continues to say it is targeting Hamas militants.

The strikes come as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in London meeting Mideast leaders. The Biden administration is still seeking a ceasefire in Gaza, as well as in Lebanon. Federal health officials say most suspected cases of bird flu in Missouri, thought to be part of a cluster, have turned out to be negative for the virus. Still, as NPR's Will Stone reports, health experts say unanswered questions remain. The fear was that a handful of health care workers in Missouri caught the virus from a hospitalized patient But testing by the CDC ultimately showed that none of them had any evidence of an infection

That's welcome news considering that human to human spread of the virus would have been a new and troubling development However, it does appear that a household contact of that Missouri patient was infected federal health officials Suspected both people caught the virus from a common source was infected. Federal health officials suspect that both people caught the virus from a common source. What that was remains a mystery, because neither person had any known exposure to an infected animal. Meanwhile, at least two new human cases have been confirmed in Washington state, both connected to a poultry outbreak.

Will Stone, NPR News. NASA says the four-person crew from a SpaceX capsule splashed down safely off the coast of Florida early today before dawn. NASA says the crew is getting medical evaluations. They have been aboard the International Space Station since early March. podcast sponsor free on Amazon Music with a Prime membership or any podcast app by subscribing to NPR News Now Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.