NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-27-2025 6PM EDT

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Giles Snyder. In Jamaica, plywood has been going up over windows ahead of Hurricane Melissa. Hurricane Melissa on track to make landfall in Jamaica by early tomorrow morning, and forecasters say Melissa could be the strongest to hit the island since record-keeping began in 1851. Melissa intensified into a Category 5 storm today over the warming Caribbean Sea linked to climate change. southeastern Cuba and the Bahamas also on the storm sites, unless already blamed for killing at least six people in the Northern Caribbean. The largest labor union representing federal employees is calling on Congress to end the government

shutdown by passing a clean, continuing resolution. NPR's Andrea Shue reports that close to a million and a half federal workers have been going without pay since October 1st. In a statement, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, Everett Kelly calls the shutdown an avoidable crisis that is harming families, communities, and the very institutions that hold our country together. He called on Congress to pass a clean continuing resolution, a move Democrats have rejected as part of their effort to force Republicans to negotiate on federal health care subsidies. Kelly wrote there is no winning a government shutdown.

Instead, they cost taxpayers billions and erode confidence. But some federal workers have urged Democrats to stand firm. They see the shutdown as a chance for lawmakers to reassert their authority over government spending and push back against the president's agenda. Andrea Shue and PR News. National Guard troops under the control of President Trump have yet to deploy in Portland, Oregon. Hundreds of them have sat idle nearby for nearly a month, but that could change this week as Oregon Public Broadcasting's Dirk Vanderhart reports. Trump called in the National Guard to defend a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the city that has been the target of protests, but the deployment has been held up

in court. A federal judge barred Trump from sending in troops earlier this month, then an appeals court ruled last week the deployment was lawful, but that ruling is now on pause. Judges with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals are weighing whether to give the matter a closer look. They expect to decide by Tuesday evening. Protests at the ICE facility turned briefly destructive in June, prompting a partial closure of the building. Since then, demonstrations have mostly been small and peaceful, though attendance has ticked up since Trump called in the guard. For NPR News, I'm Dirk Vanderhart in Portland. Indiana's Republican governor is calling on the state legislature to meet next week to

redraw the state's congressional districts. Governor Mike Braun made the call for a special session today, making Indiana the latest state to join the mid-decade redistricting war instigated by President Trump. In Virginia, state lawmakers began meeting today in a Democratic bid to counter-Republican redistricting. From Washington, this is NPR News. The Council on American Islamic Relations calling for the immediate release of the British political commentator Sammy Hamdi, accusing the Trump administration of detaining him over his criticism of the Israeli government. Hamdi was taken into U.S. custody at San Francisco International Airport after addressing

Kare's annual gala over the weekend. A U.S. official says the detention was related to statements hummedy made about the Middle East. King Charles III has again been heckled over his younger brother, Prince Andrews' involvement in the Epstein affair. The scandal loomed on a day when Charles unveiled a national memorial for gay veterans in the English Midlands. The Imperial Sorinfair reports the event was King Charles' first official event in support of LGBTQ rights. King Charles laid flowers at a bronze sculpture carved with words from personal letters once used to incriminate gay service members. An independent commission found they suffered systemic abuse under a ban on homosexuality in the

military that lasted until the year 2000. Crowds lined up to thank the king for his support for LGBT rights, but others yelled at him about his younger brother's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. In a posthumous memoir published this month, one of Epstein's accusers says she also had sex with the Prince, something he denies when she was 17. Lauren Freyer, NPR News, London. Game 3 of Major League Baseball's World Series, set to get underway in Los Angeles in a couple of hours.

I'm Jail Snyder in PR News.