NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-28-2025 12PM EDT

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

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Hey, it's Ray Malliati from Car Talk. Did you miss me? Yeah, I didn't think so. But I missed you, and now I'm taking some calls again from listeners. Of course, the answers are still going to be wrong, but it's fun to talk to you all again. If you want to hear these calls and other new bonus episodes and support NPR, sign up for Car Talk Plus. Just go to plus.npr.npr.org. Thanks. Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Sang. It is now day 12. 28 of the federal government shutdown. There's a federal court hearing today in California where a judge will hear arguments on President Trump's layoffs of some federal workers during

the shutdown. And PR's Andrea Shoe says the layoffs have been on hold for the last two weeks. The Trump administration has been pushing back against U.S. District Judge Susan Ilston's decision to temporarily halt layoffs, including at agencies that have yet to announce plans for layoffs. The administration says the court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case and that the unions have failed to show that they are suffering irreparable harm as a result of the administration's actions. The federal employee unions that brought the case, meanwhile argue that federal workers are suffering emotional trauma as a result of the recent layoffs coming on top of funding and staffing cuts to their agencies earlier this year. Andrea Shue and PR News.

Hurricane Melissa is bringing catastrophic wind and flood generating rain to Jamaica this hour. The island of more than 2.8 million residents as well as thousands of tourists were advised to take shelter as a Cat 5 storm closed in with top winds of 185 miles per hour. Defense Secretary Pete Higgseth writes on social media, the U.S. military destroyed four boats in the Eastern Pacific yesterday. Hengseth released grainy videos of the boats exploding and said Mexican emergency crews had rescued one survivor. Heg Seth said 14 people were killed in the attacks and that U.S. intelligence suggested the boats carried narcotics bound for the United States. Two previous survivors in U.S. strikes were repatriated to their home countries

where they were set free due to a lack of evidence to charge them with a crime. Some U.S. lawmakers from both parties have called the killings executions without trial. and illegal. That suggests that the military is breaking U.S. and international law when it kills civilians. Investors in the U.S. have been keeping an eye on trade and interest rates this week. NPR Scott Horsley reports so far they like what they're seeing. Investors are optimistic that an expected meeting this week between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will lead to a ratcheting down of trade tensions between the world's two biggest economies. Trump held a friendly meeting today with the new prime minister of Japan.

Amazon says it's cutting some 14,000 corporate jobs as it leans more heavily on artificial intelligence. Amazon is a financial supporter of NPR. Federal Reserve policymakers are meeting in Washington. When that meeting wraps up tomorrow, the central banks expected to cut its benchmark interest rate by another quarter percentage point. That expectation was reinforced by a report last week, showing slightly less inflation in September than forecasters had expected. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington. At last check on Wall Street, the Dow was up 150. 55 points. It's NPR news.

President Trump is spending the coming hours in Japan after signing more deals addressing trade and critical minerals before he leaves for an economic gathering in South Korea, where he is expected to meet Thursday with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Obesity rates have declined after hitting an all-time high of nearly 40 percent in the U.S. A Gallup poll finds that the drops correlate with sharp increases in use of obesity treatments, known as. GLP-1 medications. And PR's Yukinaguchi explains. For decades, obesity rates steadily climbed, evading various diet trends and public health attempts to curtail it. But over the past three years, and tracking with the increased popularity of injectable obesity medications, Gallup's National Health and Well-Being Index finds obesity rates decreased to 37 percent in its most recent survey, down from 39.9% in 2022.

Meanwhile, use of GLP1 drugs more than doubled to 12.4% over the past year and a half. Still, the percentage of Americans diagnosed with diabetes hit an all-time high of 13.8%. Yuki Naguchi, NPR News. The Kenyan airline Mombasa Air Safari says 11 people were killed in a plane crash in the coastal region of Kuala, early Tuesday. The majority of the victims were four nationals from Hungary and Germany. The aircraft went down in heavy rain as it was heading to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. I'm Lakshmi Singh and PR News in Washington.