NPR News: 06-29-2026 4AM EDT

Dale Willman· Host0:01

Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman. Rescue teams in Venezuela are continuing their efforts to find people alive in the rubble left behind by Wednesday's earthquakes. Officials say chances of anyone still being alive are now remote. But as NPR's Eder Peralta tells us, hope remains for many of the searchers.

Eder Peralta0:18

There was just this mad rush to try and find people who were making noise from under a rubble, and really, it was an ad hoc job. They were tying pieces of concrete onto cars and just trying to move them with cars. And then every once in a while, they would tell everybody to be quiet. The motorcycles would turn off their engines, and they would all go quiet, and the rescuers would scream, "If you're alive, please make some noise." The people inside had been screaming for days, but last night, all the rescuers kept hearing was just rustling sounds. They told them, "If you're alive, uh, use two rocks and smash them together so we can hear them."

Dale Willman· Host0:56

That's NPR's Eder Peralta. Officials say the death toll now sits at fourteen hundred and fifty, but that number is still expected to rise. A potentially dangerous heat wave is building in the Midwest and East, and it will begin to scorch much of the East Coast and South midweek. NPR's James Jones has more.

James Jones1:12

It's been a relatively cool start to summer for much of the East. That's about to change in a big way. By midweek, temperatures from Atlanta to New York City are expected to top one hundred. By Thursday, New York City could hit one oh three and DC one oh five.

Bob Oravec· Soundbite1:27

Everyone should be paying extra attention to this.

James Jones1:29

Bob