KUOW Newscast: August 16 at 6:01am

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Windsor Mike Johnston. Hurricane Lala is moving away from Hawaii's Big Island after skirting the southern coast without making landfall. The storm brought powerful winds and torrential rain, flooding roads and knocking out power to tens of thousands of customers. Robert Ballard is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. We're getting incredibly strong winds, very strong downslope winds, coming off the mountain slopes, massive flash flooding with intense, intense rainfall. And then, of course, as we typically see with hurricanes, very high surf. and storm surge as well. So it's a combination of all of those threats. Some areas of the Big Island and Maui receive more than 15 inches of rain as the storm passed. Severe storms and flooding are being reported across parts of the Midwest. Indiana has been especially hit hard with rivers reaching record levels and hundreds of people forced from their homes. Samantha Horton from member station WFYI reports at least five people have died. In a town of Rocky Ripple along the White River, residents of more than 300 homes were urged to evacuate. Volunteers helped fill sandbags for residents to try to protect their homes. Some sandbags were also used to reinforce the levy keeping the water back. Town Council President Randy Bernie Sanders says the flood is expected to be the worst since 1913. Projections right now are that the water could be a foot over top of the levee here. And there's also some weak spots in the levy. And if we lose any part of it, we're going to lose most of the town. President Trump approved federal aid to assist in emergency response efforts. For NPR News, I'm Samantha Horton in Indianapolis. The FDA is in Mexico to investigate the cause of contaminated lettuce that has sickened almost 10,000 people in at least 19 states. NPR's Laura Dan Sullivan reports. FDA officials say they have initiated an on-site inspection at Taylor Farms in Mexico. The farm linked to the largest known cyclospora outbreak in U.S. history. They say they're coordinating with Mexican officials. The FDA says in a statement it's, quote, confident that all recalled iceberg lettuce related to this specific outbreak is off the market. Officials noted that the Best Buy dates on the lettuce packaging has also now passed. The FDA says investigators in Mexico hope to sample different areas of the facility and the fields, though critics say it will be hard to gain much useful information now because too much time has passed. Taylor Farm says it recalled all iceberg lettuce from the U.S. market on July 17th. Laura Dan Sullivan, NPR News, Washington. This is NPR News.