NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-31-2025 5PM EDT

Episode Date: August 31, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dan Ronan. Russian President Putin is in China for a four-day visit that will include meetings with President Xi Jinping and India's leader Nandira Modi. As NPR's Charles Main reports from Moscow, the gathering comes amid talks of a global realignment. President Putin has long argued for a new multipolar world, less dominated by the U.S. His visit to China will see that vision on full display. Putin will join a regional security summit in which anger of punitive U.S. economic policies are expected to take center stage. That includes by India.

A U.S. ally increasingly adrift after President Trump imposed steep tariffs over its purchase of discounted Russian oil amid the war in Ukraine. Yet Russia's biggest trading partner remains China. Putin will meet separately with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. He'll also join North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un among Xi's guests of honor at a military parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the symbolic show of a new global order. NPR News, Moscow. The labor movement is preparing for mass labor day protest across the country, as NPR's Andrea Shue reports organizers have events planned in all 50 states.

The theme of many of these events is workers over billionaires. AFLCIO president, Lou Schuller, says, workers have stood up to billionaires before, but... What we've never seen is those same CEOs and billionaires being handed full control of our government, our democracy, our lives. She highlighted four members. of President Trump's cabinet who fit that category. Schuller says Trump is reversing progress on union jobs,

including by stripping most federal workers of their collective bargaining rights and putting immigrant workers and their families in a state of fear. Meanwhile, in a proclamation, Trump called the American worker the beating heart of the economy and said his administration is restoring the dignity of labor. Andrea Shoe and PR News. Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis held its first mass last night since the deadly shooting their Wednesday morning.

NPR's Jason DeRose reports from Minneapolis. Alleluia. Puritioners gathered in the school gym rather than the sanctuary at Annunciation. The church building itself is still a crime scene. During the sermon, the congregation's pastor, Dennis Zarin, acknowledged how difficult the coming weeks and months will be. My good people of enunciation, my good people of Minneapolis, and beyond, we are in a very low place.

We are in a lower place than we could have ever imagined. But Zarin offered a word of hope as well, telling those gathered that despite sorrow and loss, God always calls people to begin again. Jason DeRos, NPR News, Minneapolis. Israel says its military forces have killed the Hamas spokesman Abu Abbata during a recent air strike in Gaza. you're listening to NPR news. Hollywood summer box office numbers will end up roughly even with last year. NPR's Bob Mondello says for film studios, that counts as both a relief and a letdown. $3.6 billion is what the film industry expects this summer's movies to have taken in by the end of the holiday weekend.

Nothing to sneeze at, certainly, but given ever-increasing ticket prices, not really something to cheer. We have a blue dog to catch. Lilo and Stitch, Superman, Jurassic World Rebirth, and eight other films this summer qualified as blockbusters, meaning they've each taken in more than $100 million. The largest dinosaurs on the planet. But there's less strength with smaller movies as audiences wait to stream films without superheroes, aliens, or dinosaurs. Back before the pandemic, the summer of 2019 had the same number of blockbusters, but

that summer's lesser films were stronger, so the industry took in about a half a billion dollars more overall. Bob Mandello, NPR News. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Christine Nome is confirming that the Trump administration will soon expand its immigration enforcement efforts in Chicago. In an interview on the CBS News program Faced the Nation, Nome said immigration and customs will add more resources in the Chicago area in the coming days. DHS last week requested assistance from the nearby Great Lakes Naval Station, which is 35 miles north of Chicago for logistical and infrastructure needs. Governor J.B. Pritzker says putting federal forces in Chicago could be an attempt to stop the 2026 midterm elections or take control of the elections. He said the move is dangerous and not

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