NPR News: 10-04-2025 5AM EDT
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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Giles Snyder. President Trump says he believes Hamas is ready for a lasting peace. Trump overnight urged Israel to stop bombing Gaza after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accepted some of the other terms of the president's plan to end the war. NPR's Aya Batraoui says there are still a lot of unanswered questions.
An example would be troop withdrawal. When would Israel withdraw its troops? The disarmament of Hamas, would Hamas be storing its weapons, giving up its weapons? How and when would that happen? How about the deployment of Arab forces into Gaza? Egypt says it's ready to do that, to help with that, but they need a clear mandate for those forces and they need a UN Security Council resolution. There's also a board that would be governing Gaza that would essentially be chaired by President Trump himself. But what role would Palestinians have and actually implementing their own governance in Gaza. So all of these are questions that are still going to have to be negotiated, and Hamas wants to be at the table for that.
Israel says it's preparing for the immediate implementation of the first stage of President Trump's plan. The shutdown of the federal government now in its fourth day, and after failing to pass a short-term funding bill, the Senate will not be back in session until Monday.
What did President Trump say about Hamas and a possible ceasefire?
NPR's Andrea Hsu reports that President Trump and Budget Director Russell Vogt say the shutdown has given them an opportunity to cut programs and order mass layoffs.
Even before the shutdown, the National Institutes of Health had gone through mass layoffs and seen the cancellation of hundreds of research grants. Those moves have been challenged in court, but for now, the Supreme Court has allowed them to stand. Mark Heistad, a brain scientist with NIH, is part of a coalition of civil servants who say the president is overstepping his power. Heistad spoke in his personal capacity.
Trump, with Russell Vogt, has been taking this power, seizing this power from Congress and ignoring the Constitution.
The White House argues the Constitution gives the president the power to run the executive branch as he sees fit. So far, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court largely appears to back that view. Andrea Hsu, NPR News.
The Trump administration is being sued over its decision to slap a steep fee on skilled worker visas. Here's NPR's John Ruich reporting.
The Trump administration last month said the government will start charging $100,000 for every new H-1B visa that it issues. The visas are used to bring skilled workers into the American economy from abroad. President Trump says the program has been exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers. Critics say the new fee will make it harder to fill critical jobs. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Northern California. It argues that Trump does not have the authority to impose such a fee and asks for it to be blocked. The plaintiffs include unions representing workers and college professors, a nurse staffing agency, and religious organizations.
What unanswered questions remain about troop withdrawal and Gaza governance?
It's the first major legal challenge to the rule change for H-1B visas. John Rewich, NPR News.
And from Washington, you're listening to NPR News. Hip-hop mogul Sean Combs has been sentenced to 50 months in prison. Combs was convicted in July on two counts of transportation for prostitution, as NPR's Isabella Gomez Sarmiento reports.
Federal Judge Arun Subramanian sentenced Sean Combs to over four years in prison, citing his history of physical and emotional abuse. Earlier this summer, a federal jury acquitted Sean Combs of sex trafficking and racketeering, the most serious charges that he faced. But he was found guilty of transporting two of his ex-girlfriends across state lines to engage in prostitution with male escorts. Much of the trial centered on how Combs used power, violence, and manipulation to coerce the women into those acts.
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