NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-20-2025 2PM EDT

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. President Trump signed an agreement with the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on critical rare earth materials. NPR's Frank Ordonez reports the agreement includes investments in Australia to boost processing of these minerals and metals. Speaking alongside the Australian Prime Minister at the White House, President Trump said the two sides had been negotiating for four or five months before reaching an agreement. In about a year from now, we'll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won't know what to do with them. They'll be worth about $2. These rare earths are critical to the manufacture of countless modern products, from cars to semiconductors to all forms of electronics, including phones and laptops. China, one of the greatest sources of critical minerals and metals worldwide, this month, added more restrictions on their exports.

Australia, which is considered to have a healthy supply, is. positioning itself as a viable alternative. Franco or Donias, NPR News, the White House. The U.S. Senate reconvenes in the coming hours to hold yet another vote on a short-term spending bill to reopen the government. Federal workers have been in limbo for 20 days now. Democrats have been holding out for the GOP to restore health care protections to millions of low and middle-income households. House Speaker Mike Johnson addressed reporters earlier today. Is it dangerous for them to shut the government down right now? Yes, because we have very pressing matters that we need to handle, but we can't do it when the Senate is stalling all of that, stopping it. House Speaker, Mike Johnson, speaking with reporters.

We see U.S. stocks continue to climb higher, led by Apple's surge. At last check, the Dow was up 543 points, more than 1%. President Trump says the best way to end Russia's war with Ukraine is to carve up the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbos. Russia is currently occupying part of it. But Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, says that solution will not stop Russia from invading again. NPR's Joanna Kikis has more from Kiev. Zelensky made the comments during a closed-door meeting with media that included NPR. He said the Kremlin has long insisted that Ukraine withdraw from two eastern regions,

Donetsk and Lujansk, which are partly controlled by Russia. Zelensky said Russian President Vladimir Putin wants these regions to show that he has, quote, won this war, but that Russia will attack Ukraine again. Zelensky seemed to downplay reports that his meeting with Trump in Washington on Friday was unusually tense, adding that Ukraine shares Trump's, quote, positive outlook to end the war. However, Zelensky did say that Trump appears to be giving Putin another chance after weeks of criticizing the Kremlin. Joanna Kikis, NPR News, Kiev.

From Washington, it's NPR News. Japan's ruling party has entered into a coalition with a former critic. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Tokyo that the ruling party's president is expected to be voted in as Japan's first female prime minister Tuesday. Ruling Liberal Democratic Party or LDP president, Senai Takaichi, an opposition Japan Innovation Party or JIP leader Hirofumi Yoshimura, signed a coalition agreement at the parliament building. Both leaders said their parties share a common vision for Japan, but the JIP has long criticized the LDP as a corrupt and unaccountable part of the political establishment. Their coalition will still be in the minority in Parliament, and the LDP will likely have to make a lot of compromises to enact legislation.

Sinai Takaichi claims to be a fan of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Experts question whether she'll have much bandwidth for anything other than fighting for her own political survival. Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Tokyo. Well, after years of socialism, a majority of Bolivian voters are now welcoming their first conservative leader in decades. Preliminary results showed yesterday that Rodrigo Paz won the majority of the vote. He and his running mate rallied working class and rural voters who are angry about a long-running economic crisis, including record inflation. Disruptions are still rippling around the globe from a massive Amazon Web Services outage, Users reported problems with a broad range of websites, including Amazon, Snapchat, and Venmo.

As of this morning, ADBOS said the issue was fully mitigated. This is NPR News.