NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-27-2024 6PM EDT

Episode Date: October 27, 2024

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Hey there, it's Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I know this is hard to believe, but one day the election will be over. Then the winner gets a lot more powerful. It's my job to report on what they do with that power. That's public accountability, but it's not possible without public support. So please support our work. Sign up for NPR Plus. Go to plus.npr.org. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janene Herbst. Vice President Kamala Harris spent the day crisscrossing the city of Philadelphia. NPR's Azmahalled has more. The vice president specifically was trying to energize black and brown voters, focused

on energizing voters in the key state of Pennsylvania. Here she is at a rally in Philadelphia. There is too much on the line and we must not wake up the day after the election and have any regrets about what we could have done in these next nine days. Harris had a series of smaller retail stops today, visiting a black barber shop and later a Puerto Rican restaurant where she spoke about her plan for economic development and investment in the electrical grid on the island. Asma Khalid, NPR News. And former President Donald Trump is veering away from swing states to campaign in New York with a rally at Madison Square Garden. The hours-long

event features a number of speakers including House Speaker Mike Johnson, Elon Musk, Hulk Hogan, and former Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Trump is expected to take the stage soon. Trump says he's going to win the deep blue state despite losing his home state by around 23 percentage points during the 2016 and 2020 elections. Current polling averages of the empire stage show Trump is trailing Harris by around 15 points. A round Supreme Leader says the weekend attack on key military targets should be neither

downplayed nor magnified, according to Iran's state media. And Piers Arzoo-Rezvani has more. While meeting with the families of four Iranian soldiers killed in Israel's attack, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Israel exaggerated its destruction of Iran's defense system infrastructure. He refrained from calling for retaliatory strikes. Instead, he said the attack should be neither downplayed nor magnified. It was a tempered response from the supreme leader, who now faces a choice to hit back and risk escalation or to stand down and risk looking weak.

In a letter to the United Nations Secretary General, Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Arachi, said Iran reserves the right to respond to Israel's quote, criminal aggression, but it is Iran's supreme leader who has the ultimate authority to order strikes. Arzoo Razvani, NPR News, Beirut. Egypt is proposing a two-day ceasefire in Gaza and the release of four hostages. The country, a key mediator in the Israel-Hamas war, says the proposal also includes the release of some Palestinian prisoners, the delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza and negotiations on making the ceasefire permanent. Israel and Hamas haven't responded

yet. The latest talks are expected in Qatar, another key mediator. This is the U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials met trying to jumpstart ceasefire talks. There hasn't been a ceasefire since a week-long pause in fighting in the earliest weeks of the more than year-long war. Game three of the World Series will be played tomorrow night in New York between the L.A. Dodgers and the New York Yankees. You're listening to NPR News from Washington.

A month after the remnants of Hurricane Helene devastated Asheville, North Carolina, cleanup continues and some progress is being made. Running water has been restored to some areas, but you can't drink it yet. Communities are also facing the daunting task of millions of cubic yards of debris, and city schools will reopen tomorrow on a modified schedule. World leaders met recently to discuss saving the planet's biodiversity. Extinctions are happening at a rapid pace, especially in Hawaii. And Piers Lauren Sommer has more.

Hawaii has more threatened animals than any other state. Many found nowhere else on Earth. But soon one of those species will be taking a small step in recovery. It's a kahuli, a Hawaiian tree snail. The tiny snails look like jewels, and there were once more than 700 species. Half of them are now extinct, largely because of invasive animals. Many have been brought into captivity for safekeeping. Now, biologists with Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resources are poised to release one species in the mountains of Oahu next month. It'll be a walled enclosure to keep invasive species out to give the

snail the best chance of survival. Lauren Summer, NPR News. People in a northern town in the Philippines are cleaning up after tropical storm Trami, one of the deadliest storms to hit this area this year, swept through. More than 120 people are dead or missing. Officials say a mix of increasingly destructive weather blamed on climate change and also economic desperation has forced people to live and work in previously off-limit disaster zones. I'm Janene Herbst, NPR News.