NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-25-2025 4AM EDT

Episode Date: October 25, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Wilman. The U.S. is sending an aircraft carrier in its strike group to the waters of South America. The Pentagon says the USS Gerald Ford will deploy to bolster the U.S. capacity to detect and disrupt people who compromised the safety of the U.S. The military move is also fueling speculation that the Trump administration could be preparing a strike on Venezuela. James Story was the top U.S. diplomat in Venezuela from 2018 to 2023. assumption and analysis you have to give to it is that the possibility of some type of an action against a major regime is possible. The U.S. military, meanwhile, carried out another lethal strike on the Caribbean Sea overnight. That attack destroyed a boat carrying six people. As Julia

Carniero reports, U.S. strikes in South American waters have now killed more than 40 people. This was the 10th known vessel destroyed by the U.S. since early September. President Trump said there would be ground operations against drug cartels. tells very soon. As tension escalates, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro made this appeal. Not war. Just peace. Just peace. Just peace forever. The U.S. has been holding military exercises close to Venezuela in the past weeks. This video from the U.S. Southern Command plays a clock ticking as it shows soldiers flying over the Caribbean Sea and tanks entering a jungle. Colombian president Gustavo Petro has called the attack's extrajudicial execution.

For NPR News, I'm Julia Carnero. The Justice Department says it will send election observers to some polling sites in California and New Jersey for the November election. As NPR's Hans-Lawang reports, it comes after requests from local Republican parties. The Justice Department says to, quote, ensure transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law.

Federal election observers are heading to five counties in Southern and Central California, including Los Angeles County, plus New Jersey's Passaic County. All six locations are in, Democratic-led states holding elections with national implications, including California's special election on congressional redistricting and the New Jersey governor's race. Those six locations were also named in letters from those states' Republican parties, which claimed each of those counties has experienced voting issues and asked the DOJ to send

federal monitors. New Jersey's Attorney General Matt Blackkin, a Democrat, says the move is highly inappropriate, and that state officials are considering all of their options to prevent any effort to intimidate voters. Onzi Luong, NPR News. Melissa could become a major hurricane this weekend and threatened southwest Haiti and Jamaica with flooding and landslides. Melissa is currently almost stationary in the Caribbean, but forecasters say it could grow strong enough this weekend to drop as much as 35 inches of rain on the region. Melissa is moving north at about two miles an hour. The slow speed would allow more rain to be dropped. It was a strong day on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up by 1%.

And you're listening to NPR News. In game one of the World Series, standout rookie starter, Trey Yosavage, limited the L.A. Dodgers to two runs over four innings Friday night as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Dodgers, 11 to 4. It was the 22-year-old seventh major league appearance. Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has met European leaders in London, where they agreed to step up the pressure on Russia to negotiate an end of the war. Britain's Prime Minister Kirstarmer hosted the meeting as NPR's Fatima al-Al-Kasab reports from London. Speaking after the meeting of this Coalition of the Willing, the European supporters of Ukraine, Prime Minister Stama said they stand with Kiev stronger than ever. Ukraine's future is our future. What happens in the weeks and months ahead is pivotal for the security of the United Kingdom and all our allies.

He says the coalition agreed on a series of measures to bring President Putin back to the negotiating table, including taking Russia's oil and gas off the global market, committing to providing Ukraine with long-range weapons and releasing funds from Russia's frozen assets. President Zelensky says pressure on the aggressor is the only way to end the war. Fatemar al-Kasab, NPR News, London. In Operation in Latin America, led by Interpol, has led to 225 arrests and hundreds of new investigations into illegal logging, wildlife trafficking, and gold mining in the area. The law enforcement agency announced those arrests on Friday. It says that during the past two months, its agents uncovered more than 400 cases of environmental crime and seized timber, live animals, and weapons.

I'm Dale Wilman, NPR News.