NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-29-2025 6AM EDT

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. The National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Melissa has made a second landfall, this time on Cuba. Top sustained winds are 115 miles per hour. The Hurricane Center's director, Michael Brennan, says Melissa is picking up speed. We're going to see the center of Melissa move off of the northeastern coast of Cuba during the daytime on Wednesday and then move through the southeastern Bahamas during the afternoon and evening hours from Wednesday into Thursday of hurricane warnings in effect there. and rainfall of five to ten inches. The hurricane made landfall yesterday in Jamaica

with top sustained winds of 185 miles per hour. Officials in Jamaica say they are getting reports of devastating damage to infrastructure. Melissa is so big, people in Haiti are still sheltering from the hurricane's outer bands. Israel says it has stopped its airstrikes again after resuming them yesterday. Israel now says the ceasefire with Hamas is back on in Gaza.

But officials in Gaza say the Israeli airstrikes killed 100 Palestinians in less than 12 hours. They say a third of the people Israel killed were children. The Republican-led U.S. Senate has voted to block President Trump's emergency tariffs on Brazil. NPR's Cledio Grasolos reports it's a rare bipartisan rebuke of the president. Five Republicans joined Democrats to approve the measure terminating Trump's use of an emergency provision earlier this year to place 50 percent tariffs on. Brazilian goods. As he was leaving the Senate subway ahead of the vote, North Carolina's Tom Tillis said he was a yes because the tariffs are not tied to any business or trade reasons and hurt U.S. commerce. I think in that case, I just, I don't think there's a rational basis for it.

Trump triggered the Brazil tariffs to pressure the government to end a, quote, witch hunt against his far-right ally, former Brazilian President Jaiyid Bolsonaro. The Senate will take up similar measures focused on Canada and other countries later this week. Claude Riesales, NPR News, the Capitol. The Federal Reserve is expected to lower its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point later today. NPR Scott Horsley reports that would be the Fed's second rate cut in six weeks. For most of this year, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates relatively high in an effort

to curb stubborn inflation. Those inflation worries haven't disappeared, but they are taking a backseat for now to rising concerns about the job market. Hiring slowed over the summer, and in recent days some high-profile corporations have announced large-scale layoffs. Assessing the strength or weakness of the job market is especially tricky these days because the government workers who ordinarily keep tabs on employment have been temporarily sidelined by the federal shutdown. Fed policy makers did get a readout on inflation for last month. It showed prices in September were up three percent from a year ago, a slightly smaller increase than forecasters expected. Scott Horsley and Pair News

Washington. On Wall Street in pre-market trading, Dow futures are lower. This is NPR. A federal judge in California has indefinitely halted many of the Trump administration's mass layoffs tied to the government shutdown. The firing process for thousands of federal employees is now on pause. NPR's Andrea Shoe reports. U.S. District Judge Susan Ilston sided with a group of federal employee unions. She found they're likely to show that actions taken by the Trump administration since October 1st to fire thousands of federal workers are illegal. In court, the attorney for the government pushed back, arguing that the executive branch has the authority to conduct layoffs before, during, and after a shutdown, and that it's good policy to end

programs that don't align with the president's priorities. The union's attorney called the government's arguments absurd and asserted that a lapse in appropriations does not justify permanently eliminating positions. Andrea Shue and PR News. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the companies that make the pain reliever Tylenol. Paxton accused them of falsely marketing Tylenol to pregnant women as safe. He cites unproven allegations that it increases the risk of autism and ADHD. Paxton is echoing President Trump's unproven allegations, but physicians' groups and scientists have pushed back on the stance, saying it is not

supported by research and could have serious repercussions for women as well as for babies. The World Series is now tied. The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in L.A. in game four last night, six to two. Game five is tonight in L.A. This is NPR.