World leaders gather to sign a Gaza ceasefire deal, without Israel or Hamas in attendance. A nor’easter heads toward southern New England after a destructive day on the East Coast. And a New Jersey election tests the Republican party’s ability to get MAGA voters to the polls without Trump on the ballot.
Here’s what to know today.
World leaders sign deal ushering in Gaza truce
The leaders of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, among others, joined President Donald Trump in signing a plan meant to end the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Notably missing from the ceremony were the two warring parties.
Trump said that the second phase of peace negotiations between Hamas and Israel was already underway. He also said that now that all living hostages had been freed from Gaza, the search for the bodies of victims would continue.
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“It’s the start of a grand concord and lasting harmony for Israel and all the nations of what will soon be a truly magnificent region,” Trump said.
The Israel Defense Forces posted on X yesterday that the coffins of four Israeli hostages had entered Israel. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum in a statement called for the “immediate suspension” of the peace deal until every deceased hostage is returned, adding that it’s demanding that all 28 bodies be returned.
Hamas pledged to release the hostages in exchange for 250 prisoners serving life sentences and more than 1,700 Palestinians detained after the group’s Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel.
Of the 250 Palestinian prisoners released by Israel, 154 won’t be returning to Gaza or the occupied West Bank. Instead, they were deported to Egypt, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Authority and the nongovernmental Prisoners’ Club said in a statement. Of the 96 others, 88 are being taken to the West Bank and Jerusalem, and eight to Gaza, the statement said.
As for the future, the Trump administration appears to have less of a blueprint than an aspiration. Recent dueling statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested they differed over something as fundamental as whether the fighting was truly over.
Powerful nor’easter continues to batter East Coast
Streets on the Jersey Shore flooded yesterday and the Coast Guard rescued someone in the ocean off Cape Cod as a nor’easter brought rain, dangerous surf and wind gusts of more than 40 mph to the Northeast, officials said.
There appear to have been no weather-related deaths reported in the storm on the East Coast, which was forecast to affect southern New England today. A 76-year-old woman in New York City was killed Sunday by a 7-foot solar panel that came loose because of strong winds.
Parts of Queens got over 2 inches of rain and saw a peak wind gust of 46 mph, the city’s emergency management department said. Manhattan got around one-and-a-half inches of rain and had an unofficial high wind gust of 43 mph, it said.
How ICE turned sleepy Broadview into a chaotic, militarized town
Broadview is a Chicago suburb of 8,000 residents that stretches just over 2 miles. Its quiet streets have drawn a diverse mix of middle- and working-class families. Now, after the Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Midway Blitz, an intensive series of immigrant arrests ordered by Trump, Broadview has been dramatically transformed into the beating hot center of resistance.
Over the last several weeks, it has drawn DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, the state’s two U.S. senators — Democrats Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth — and a host of congressional hopefuls, including one who said she was thrown to the ground by an ICE agent.
Skirmishes and arrests persisted this past weekend, leading the mayor to announce yesterday that the village would further limit the designated area for protests.
More politics news:
- House Speaker Mike Johnson slammed the expiring Obamacare subsidies at the center of the government funding standoff as a “boondoggle” as the shutdown approaches the two-week mark with no end in sight.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to meet with Trump at the White House on Friday.
- Noem said that despite the government shutdown, U.S. Coast Guard service members will get their paychecks this week.
- North Carolina Republican lawmakers announced plans to redraw their state’s congressional map, part of a nationwide redistricting effort aimed at shoring up the party’s narrow majority in the U.S. House.
How virtual learning became a problem in New Mexico
In 2020, as the Covid pandemic raged, the school district in Gallup, New Mexico, thought it had found a good solution to help provide online schooling to its mostly Native American students when it hired a for-profit education company called Stride Inc.
The 25-year-old company, also known as K12 Inc., is an industry leader in virtual education, serving over 220,000 students in 31 states last school year. It promised Gallup-McKinley County Schools that it would provide teachers, laptops and internet hot spots for students who enrolled for about $8,000 per pupil. The virtual school, New Mexico Destinations Career Academy, signed up roughly 1,000 students in the 2020-21 school year, a number that would quadruple over time.
Five years later, the district ended its contract with Stride, a publicly traded corporation, and accused it of prioritizing profits at the expense of students. In interviews, court filings and government complaints, the district alleged Stride reported exaggerated student attendance counts to drive up revenue, neglected special education students and violated state law on student-teacher ratios.
Read All About It
- U.S. consumers are shouldering as much as 55% of tariff costs, according to a new report from analysts at Goldman Sachs.
- The 16 people believed to have died in a Tennessee plant explosion last week have been identified.
- NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced it will cut around 550 jobs — approximately 10% of its staff.
- The Tennessee Titans fired coach Brian Callahan, making him the first NFL coach fired this season.
Staff Pick: A MAGA test for the GOP
The New Jersey governor’s race is one of the first major tests of President Donald Trump’s ability to turn out his voters when he is not on the ballot. New Jersey is one of only two states with governor’s races this year, and New Jersey Republican Jack Ciattarelli is the only candidate for governor with Trump’s endorsement.
Republicans have struggled to turn out the president’s supporters in off-year and midterm elections, including in a number of special elections so far in 2025. And these voters could be key to Ciattarelli’s path to victory.
Politics reporter Bridget Bowman looked at Ciattarelli’s “Make NJ Great Again” campaign and examined how embracing Trump could potentially give the candidate a boost.
– Christian Orozco, newsletter and platforms editor
NBC Select: Online Shopping, Simplified
Preparing for winter driving? The NBC Select team found the best windshield scrapers and emergency car kits. Plus, October’s most interesting launches — including cozy candles, buzzy skin care and upgraded kitchen tools.
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