NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-28-2025 8AM EDT

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Krova Coleman. The National Hurricane Center says that Hurricane Melissa remains an astonishing Category 5 hurricane with top sustained winds at 175 miles per hour. It's creeping slowly toward Jamaica where it's expected to make landfall. Jamaican officials are pleading with people to seek shelter. The country's prime minister says there's no infrastructure in the region that can withstand the strength of this hurricane's onslaught. lot. Israel says that last evening Hamas handed over the rest of the remains of a body believed to be

those of a deceased hostage. But in Pierre's Rob Schmidt's reports from Tel Aviv, Israel says the remains don't match any of the hostages it knows to be held in Gaza. Israel's National Forensic Institute said the remains handed over by Hamas did not match any of the 13 remaining deceased hostages left in Gaza. Hamas says the rubble from the war is a major obstacle in locating many of the bodies. But an Israeli spokesperson says the militant group knows where several of the bodies are. The recovery and hand over the bodies of deceased hostages in Gaza is becoming one of the biggest barriers to the implementation of the U.S. brokered peace plan. Israel has allowed an Egyptian search and rescue team to enter Gaza and work with the Red Cross to locate the bodies. President

Trump has warned that if Hamas does not hand over the remaining bodies of hostages soon, the parties that oversaw the peace process will take action. Rob Schmidt and Pierre News, Tel Aviv. This is day 28 of the federal government shutdown. Most federal employees remain furloughed except for essential workers, such as the U.S. military and air traffic controllers. A federal judge will hold a hearing today in California over a lawsuit filed by federal employee unions. They're seeking to stop President Trump from firing federal workers during the shutdown. The federal judge has temporarily paused these layoffs. There's less than a week to go until Election Day in states that are holding.

general elections this fall. Election officials are urging mail-in voters to check their state's deadlines for returning ballots so that their votes get counted. And Pierre's Hansi Lo Wang has more. Some states like Colorado, Georgia, Maine, and Pennsylvania require the balance of domestic mail-in voters to be received by next Tuesday, November 4th. The U.S. Postal Service recommends mailing return balance at least one week before your state's deadline. Because of changes due to USPS's reorganization, mailing your ballot closer to the deadline, may risk your vote arriving late and not getting counted. Election officials say absentee voters can consider other ways of turning in their ballots, including stopping by an early voting site or any

available ballot drop boxes. As for voters in states that count mail and ballots that are postmarked by, but arrive after election day, USPS says to make sure it gets a postmark on the same day you mail it, you can ask for one at a post office. Onzi Luong and PR News. market trading, Dow futures are up 176 points. This is NPR. Big Tech company Amazon says it will lay off some 14,000 roles in its corporate workforce. In an online message to employees, Amazon officials say artificial intelligence is letting companies innovate more quickly, but Amazon did not specify how AI may have changed any of its workers' roles. Amazon is a financial supporter of NPR. For decades, the federal government collected data on the American high school experience,

but that long-running effort came to a halt earlier this year. APM reporter Carrella Wallianone has more. The government has been running high school longitudinal studies since the early 1970s. Students answer survey questions during school, and then repeatedly in later years. Policymakers used that data to help students be successful. At least Christopher ran these studies for years at the Department of Education. Every single person in this country who's been educated in the past 50 years has benefited from something that one of these longitudinal surveys has done. In February, the Trump administration scrapped the high school studies contracts.

A Department of Education spokesperson said the agency is reviewing the studies, quote, return on investment for taxpayers. For NPR News, I'm Carmelo Al-Unone. The Los Angeles Dodgers lead the World Series two games to one. They beat the Toronto Blue Jays 6 to 5 in L.A. last night in a marathon 18 inning game. It lasted for six and a half hours. Dodger two-way star Shohei Otani helped lift the team with two home runs. He'll take the mound tonight for the Dodgers to start game four. I'm Corva Coleman, NPR News.

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