Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Saturday, October 11, 2025. This is USA Today's

is the X-Aers. Today, the latest from Gaza and Israel, as we hear about one family's fight to return

hostages. Plus, Trump follows through on threats

to fire federal workers during the shutdown and the latest on a manufacturing plan explosion in Tennessee.

Seven Jewish members of Alana Zaytchik's family in Israel were abducted by Hamas on October 7,

2023. I spoke with USA Today, national correspondent Michael Collins, about her work

to bring them home. Michael, thank you so much for joining me on this. Glad to be here.

So really important piece here. Could you just start by telling us a little bit about Alana Zaytchick

and her family story? Well, Alana lives in New York. She has been working nonstop for the last couple of years to try to help find seven of her family members back in Israel who were abducted and held hostage by Hamas on October the 7th, 2023. These family members included two of her cousins, and she's really close to both of them. Her cousin's three daughters, who were very young, the husband of one of her cousins, and the husband's brother. As I said, they were all abducted by Hamas on October the 7th, 2023.

Now, about seven weeks after they were captured, five of them were released.

The two cousins and their young daughters were freed in the last week of November of that year

as part of a temporary ceasefire that was announced at the time.

But the husband of one of the women was not freed, and he is still in captivity.

So is his brother, who was abducted at the same time.

And those two men are among the 20 hostages that are expected to be released soon as part of this new ceasefire

and hostage agreement that was broken by at the White House. Well, Michael, you mentioned she's been

fighting really over these past two years, essentially as a full-time job, right, to bring her

family members home to free them. What specifically has she been doing and has she had any communication with loved ones throughout this?

She has not had any communication with the two men who remain in captivity.

No one in the family has seen them since her two cousins were released a couple of years ago.

So what is she done?

Well, she's been all over TV.

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