Shownotes Transcript
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. Hurricane Milton has burgeoned into a Category 4 major storm. In just a few hours, the National Hurricane Center says Milton went from a storm with top sustained winds of 100 miles per hour to top sustained winds of 155 miles per hour. This is just two miles per hour shy of the top of the scale, a Category 5 hurricane. Milton is aiming for the Gulf Coast of Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis
says Florida is preparing. Vision of Emergency Management is busy facilitating hundreds of resource requests from communities as we prepare for the impacts. We've already sent major truckloads of food and water to Central Florida in preparation for points of distribution sites after the storm. Hurricane Milton could make landfall by Wednesday. It's currently forecast to charge across the Florida Peninsula and then into the Atlantic Ocean.
Meanwhile, the death toll across the southeast from Hurricane Helene has risen to at least 227 people. Many people are still unaccounted for. One mountain hamlet in North Carolina that was flooded by the remnants of Helene is preparing to face possibly months without power. NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports that most people who live in the town of Poplar are seniors.
Fewer than 300 people live here, but Misty Hughes says the ties go back generations, five in her case. The last estimate she got was up to five months without electricity, phone or internet. So Hughes is scouting for propane and kerosene heaters to see people through what's likely to be a cold, dark winter. These elderly that once used wood stoves,
have aged to the point that they're unable to supply that need for themselves. Medication is another challenge with the closest hospital flooded out. But one man says staying put still seems better than leaving his lifelong home. Jennifer Ludden, NPR News, Poplar, North Carolina. Today marks a year since Hamas militants attacked Israel. Israeli officials say about 1,200 people were killed. It triggered the war in Gaza.
Health authorities in Gaza say more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed. NPR's Windsor Johnston reports at least 130 journalists have also been killed covering the conflict. Clayton Weimers is with Reporters Without Borders, a nonprofit that promotes press freedom worldwide.
He says journalists in Gaza are facing some of the harshest conditions that the press has ever had to face. Risks to their lives and not to mention the psychological impact of losing so many family, friends and colleagues. And they have a lot of practical challenges, like a lack of a
equipment, and frequent cuts to internet and cell service. The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists says the first 10 weeks of the Israel-Gaza war was the deadliest recorded for journalists, with the most reporters killed in a single year in one location. Windsor Johnston, NPR News. You're listening to NPR.
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