Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Louise Skiyavone. Bermuda is now in the path of a weekend but still

destructive hurricane that has already killed dozens of people in the Caribbean. It made landfall in

Cuba this morning as a category three storm. Hurricane Melissa generated deadly floods in Haiti

and devastated Western Jamaica yesterday.

Hundreds of thousands were left without power, NPR's Michael Copley reports.

A State Department spokesperson says Jamaica's government requested help after the storm made landfall

as one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record.

The spokesperson says the State Department positioned supplies ahead of time to deliver emergency relief.

Roads in Jamaica need to be cleared so rescue teams can get to people trapped in their homes.

The government says the international airport could reopen for relief flights in a day.

The storm is also causing flooding a neighboring Cuba, where it came ashore is a still strong Category 3 storm.

The State Department said in a social media post,

it's deploying a disaster response team and search and rescue teams to help Caribbean countries

hit by the storm. Michael Copley, NPR News. The Federal Reserve today reduced its key

interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point down to about 3.9% from roughly 4.1%. This was the Fed's second

easing in six weeks. NPR Scott Horsley reports the widely expected move is designed to provide

support for the job market. What they're hoping to avoid is a big jump in unemployment.

You know, we've seen a slowdown in hiring in recent months.

Employers actually cut the number of jobs in June. And just this week, we've seen some big

companies announcing widespread layoffs. General Motors is cutting 1,700 factory jobs. Amazon's

cutting 14,000 corporate jobs. Amazon, by the way, is a financial supporter of NPR and pays to distribute some of our programming.

So Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says by making it cheaper for both businesses and shoppers to borrow money,

...