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Israel released nearly 2,000 prisoners yesterday as part of the initial phase of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. Hamas also freed the last 20 surviving Israeli hostages. Some of the Palestinians who returned to Gaza were journalists, doctors and first responders who were taken from hospitals and off the streets by soldiers. NPR’s Aya Batrawy tells Up First that some of the returned Palestinians showed signs of torture on their bodies and severe malnutrition, and some struggled to walk.

• 🎧 NPR’s Anas Baba witnessed the people’s return to Gaza and said he saw a mix of joy and survival as many embraced loved ones. But many of them have no homes to return to and have discovered that their families are gone. Israeli troops still occupy Gaza and won’t be withdrawing until Hamas disarms. Batrawy says it is still uncertain whether Hamas will agree to storing or handing over offensive weapons. As Gaza looks to rebuild, President Trump’s peace plan doesn’t address the West Bank or the creation of a Palestinian state, leaving the root of the conflict unresolved.
• 🎧 Trump has returned from a trip to the Middle East and is receiving a lot of credit for the ceasefire deal, says NPR’s Tamara Keith. There have previously been brief ceasefires in the war. The question now is whether this time will be different. Keith emphasizes that this is only the first phase of a multiphase peace plan for Gaza. By making the trip to the Middle East, Trump has invested political capital in the peace being a lasting one. For the agreement to hold, the president cannot just move on; he will have to stay engaged and keep applying pressure, according to Keith.
• ➡️ Here’s a look at the war in Gaza, by the numbers.

Federal immigration officers have been seen in countless videos using increasingly aggressive tactics while detaining immigrants. A majority of Americans say they disapprove of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics, according to a recent survey from The New York Times and Siena University.

• 🎧 Ed Yohnka with the ACLU of Illinois tells NPR’s Meg Anderson that officers are dragging people out of vehicles and roughly taking people who are just walking on the street. Yohnka and other observers say federal agents have tear-gassed people and shot them with pepper balls while targeting immigrants, protesters and journalists. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says its officers are acting according to law and policy. Gil Kerlikowske, the former commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, tells Anderson that immigration officers are not prepared to police an urban environment, and good policing in cities is about getting the public to trust you.

New 2025 testing data indicate that U.S. students in third to eighth grade scored below 2019 performance levels in reading. The data comes from the Spring 2025 MAP Growth Assessment by NWEA, a K-12 testing and research organization. The results show there is a little more room for optimism when it comes to math, where some grades showed improvement. All grades are still behind compared to pre-pandemic scores.

Cost of living

Veterinarian Janet Sosnicki, 36, checks the temperature of Theodore during a drive through veterinarian clinic at the Salem Animal Rescue League in Salem, New Hampshire on May 27, 2020. – Many veterinarian offices have been closed to the public during the pandemic and many have choses to do outside visits to reduce the spread of the covid-19 virus. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP) (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)

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NPR’s series Cost of Living: The Price We Pay is examining what’s driving price increases and how people are coping after years of stubborn inflation. 

If you have a pet, odds are you have felt the increased cost of pet care. The Indicator from Planet Money talks with Veterinarian Adam Hechko about why prices are soaring. Here’s what he had to say:

• 🐶 The cost of operating a veterinary practice has increased with things like medication, partly due to tariffs. Hechko says the cost of a box of exam gloves is more than twice what it was a year or so ago.
• 🐶 For many practices, the cost of labor exceeds 50% of overall operating costs, because wages for these careers have to rise over time.
• 🐶 People are willing to spend more money on pet care. Hechko says this noticeable shift in the culture of pet ownership relates to pandemic lockdowns. Some people’s only social interactions or source of companionship during that time were their pets. Hechko believes that’s why more people are willing to pay more for the best care to keep their pet healthy.

Listen to what else Hechko has to say about the cost of pet care, or read the transcript from the interview. This week, the series will cover the rising cost of health care. Stay up-to-date on the latest stories here.

How are higher prices changing the way you live? Fill out this form to share your story with NPR.

Picture show

Spaghetti Cumbia posa para un retrato en Vasquez Rocks, en el norte del condado de Los Ángeles, el 26 de marzo de 2022.

Ivan Kashinsky

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Cumbia Across Latin America is a visual report covering the people, places and cultures that keep this music genre alive in six countries.

The members of the band Spaghetti Cumbia grew up listening to Latin music in their Los Angeles homes, including cumbia. Living in LA, the group became heavily influenced by classic rock, punk rock and hip-hop. They created their own style by mixing cumbia with their influences and adding a Spaghetti Western sound. The band members credit their love for music for saving them from connecting with the wrong crowd in the ’90s, when gang violence was at its peak on the city’s east side, which was a popular destination for immigrants. Spaghetti Cumbia said there was no time to spend on the streets between rehearsals and studio sessions. Learn more about how Los Angeles helped shape cumbia music and see pictures from the band’s gigs. You can also read the article in Spanish.

3 things to know before you go

Marc Maron attends the Los Angeles Premiere of Apple TV+ New Series “Stick” at AMC Century City 15 on May 29 in Los Angeles, California.

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1. Former President Barack Obama was the final guest on actor and comedian Marc Maron’s bi-weekly podcast, which ended yesterday on episode 1,686. Obama provided insight into the current state of politics and reflected on WTF with Marc Maron‘s legacy.
2. The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded yesterday to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt for their research on how cycles of technological innovation drive economic growth and lead to creative destruction.
3. After graduating from high school in 1971, Silvana Clark enrolled at a community college after receiving guidance from her drama teacher, George Meshke, who had taken a job there. Facing financial difficulties for the next semester, she informed Meshke, who then helped her secure a scholarship. Toward the end of the school year, Clark discovered her unsung hero was actually the one responsible for paying her fees, an act she says she will never forget.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.

SpaceX launched another of its mammoth Starship rockets on a test flight Monday, successfully making it halfway around the world while releasing mock satellites like last time.

Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — thundered into the evening sky from the southern tip of Texas. The booster peeled away and made a controlled entry into the Gulf of Mexico as planned, with the spacecraft skimming space before descending into the Indian Ocean. Nothing was recovered.

“Hey, welcome back to Earth, Starship,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot announced as employees cheered. “What a day.”

It was the 11th test flight for a full-scale Starship, which SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk intends to use to send people to Mars. NASA’s need is more immediate. The space agency cannot land astronauts on the moon by decade’s end without the 403-foot (123-meter) Starship, the reusable vehicle meant to get them from lunar orbit down to the surface and back up.

Instead of remaining inside Launch Control as usual, Musk said that for the first time he was going outside to watch — “much more visceral.”

The previous test flight in August — a success after a string of explosive failures — followed a similar path with similar goals. More maneuvering was built in this time, especially for the spacecraft. SpaceX conducted a series of tests during the spacecraft’s entry over the Indian Ocean as practice for future landings back at the launch site.

Like before, Starship carried up eight mock satellites mimicking SpaceX’s Starlinks. The entire flight lasted just over an hour, originating from Starbase near the Mexican border.

NASA’s acting administrator Sean Duffy praised Starship’s progress. “Another major step toward landing Americans on the moon’s south pole,” he said via X.

SpaceX is modifying its Cape Canaveral launch sites to accommodate Starships, in addition to the much smaller Falcon rockets used to transport astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station for NASA.

New Jersey and parts of New York City were under a state of emergency on Monday as slow-moving nor’easter moved up the easter US seaboard, while in western Alaska remnants of Typhoon Halong lashed coastal hamlets and ripped houses off their foundations.

In Alaska, rescue aircraft were sent to the villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, where there were reports of up to 20 people possibly unaccounted for.

“We have received reports that people’s homes have floated away and that people were potentially in those homes,” Zidek, a spokesperson for the state division of homeland security and emergency management, told the Associated Press.

The area is among one of the most isolated in the US, where some communities have few roads and residents use boardwalks, boats and snowmobiles to get around, Zidek said.

The Alaska governor, Mike Dunleavy, extended a disaster declaration to communities in the Yupitt, Pribilof Island and Lower Kuskokwim education districts.

“Every effort will be made to help those hit by this storm. Help is on the way,” Dunleavy said in a statement on X.

Separately, the storm making its way up the east coast prompted flooding and high winds in coastal areas from the Carolinas to New England.

In Delaware, emergency management officials activated the state national guard in response to rising floodwaters and harsh winds. In North Carolina’s Outer Banks, seawater washed over highway 12 at a motel near Buxton.

Flooding was reported as widespread in Georgetown county in South Carolina, where several motorists had to be rescued when rising water; in Charleston, many downtown streets were closed because of rising waters; and in Myrtle Beach, heavy rain overwhelmed that city’s stormwater system.

“Please be safe and stay home, if possible,” Myrtle Beach officials posted on Facebook.

As the storm moved up to the coast, all of New Jersey was placed under a state of emergency. The New York governor, Kathy Hochul, issued a similar declaration for eight southern counties, urging people to monitor forecasts and avoid travel.

The National Weather Service placed New York City, Long Island and southern Westchester county under a coastal flood warning and wind advisory through at least Monday afternoon.

The emergency declaration, which included the five boroughs of New York City and Westchester county, forced the cancellation of the annual Columbus Day parade in Manhattan, news outlets reported.

Among the areas hardest hit were coastal areas of suburban Long Island, where up to 3in of rain and winds packing peak gusts of 45 to 50 mph inland away from the shore, and 55 to 60 mph on the coast.

“Those are starting to come down,” National Weather Service meteorologist Dave Stark, told Newsday early Monday.

Police in Nassau and Suffolk counties said they had received calls about downed tree limbs but no reports of injuries or any significant road closures. Freeport Mayor Robert Kennedy said the village received nuisance flooding and experienced extra high tides.