NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-28-2025 7AM EDT

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. President Trump is in Japan, where he met U.S. troops on an aircraft carrier. NPR's Deepa Shiveram reports, Trump also met with Japan's newly elected prime minister. Japanese Prime Minister Taikachi hosted Trump for a bilateral meeting and a lunch in Tokyo. Trump congratulated the prime minister on her recent election win, becoming the first female prime minister of Japan. The two leaders signed an agreement affirming the U.S.-Japan relationship is in its, quote, golden era. Anything I can do to help Japan, we will be there. We are an ally at the strongest level. The two leaders also signed an agreement on rare earths minerals. A final trade agreement is still being finalized, but the Japanese prime minister has teased a purchase of Ford F-150 trucks from the U.S. Deepa Chivaram and PR News, Tokyo. President Trump will also head to South

Korea this week. He says he'll meet Chinese President Xi Jinping. The big item on the table would be trade disagreements. The Trump administration says it has worked out a trade framework with China that could be used as a basis to complete trade deals. The federal government shutdown is nearly a month old. Most federal government employees are furloughed but not the nation's air traffic controllers. They're still on the job. From member station W-A-B-E, Marlon Hyde reports air traffic controllers will miss their first full paycheck today. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association says its members will hand out informational leaflets about the effects of the shutdown at 22 airports, including in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.

Some airports are already reporting shortages. Air traffic controllers will receive back pay after the shutdown ends, but their labor union says many started second jobs to pay their bills during the last shutdown. For NPR News, I'm Marlon Hyde in Atlanta. Forecasters say Hurricane Melissa still has shocking, top-sustained winds of 175 miles per hour. The hurricane is slowly creeping toward Jamaica in the Caribbean. NPR's Rebecca Herscher says it's expected to make a direct hit on the island. Hurricanes happen every year in the Caribbean. Jamaica has obviously been hit by lots of storms over the years.

This is just the first time a storm of this magnitude has hit the island head on since modern records began. But storms like this one are getting more likely. You know, climate change makes large, powerful storms more common. It also makes very rainy storms more likely. NPR's Rebecca Hersher reporting. Separately, Central Florida was deluged by rain over the past couple of days. More than a foot and a half of rain in some areas triggered flash flooding that overflowed roads and caught motorists. The amount of rain that fell was unusual for that part of Florida.

It was not part of the Hurricane Melissa system. You're listening to NPR. Militants in the West African nation of Mali have cut off fuel imports to much of that country. Mali is landlocked and imports its fuel from neighboring Senegal and Ivory Coast. The Al-Qaeda-backed militants are targeting key roads. They're trying to undermine Mali's military government. Military officials in Mali staged a coup five years ago. Obesity rates have declined after hitting an all-time high of nearly 40 years.

A Gallup poll finds that the drops correlate with sharp increases in the use of obesity treatments known as GOP-1 medications, and Pierre's Yuki-Noguchi explains. For decades, obesity rates steadily climbed, evading various diet trends and public health attempts to curtail it. But over the past three years, and tracking with the increased popularity of injectable obesity medications, Gallup's National Health and Well-Being Index finds obesity rates decreased to 37% in its most recent survey, down from 39.9% in 2022. Meanwhile, use of GLP1 drugs more than doubled to 12.4% over the past year and a half. Still, the percentage of Americans diagnosed with diabetes hit an all-time high of 13.8%. Yuki Naguchi, NPR News. The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue.

at home last night six to five. That was game three, and it went 18 innings and lasted more than six and a half hours. Game four is tonight in L.A. This is NPR. Listen to this podcast, sponsor-free on Amazon Music with a prime membership or any podcast app by subscribing to NPR News Now Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.