NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-30-2025 12AM EDT

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Shea Stevens. President Trump says the United States will start testing nuclear weapons on an equal basis with Russia and China. As NPR's Jeff Brunfield reports, the announcement could mark a reversal of decades-old policy. The president made his announcement in a lengthy post on truth social. The U.S. has not conducted a test of a nuclear weapon since 1992. Instead, it uses scientific experiments in computer simulation. to make sure its bombs still work. The voluntary test moratorium has been in place since the end of the Cold War

as part of an effort to maintain nuclear stability. It's not entirely clear what resuming testing on an equal basis means. The U.S. is not prepared to conduct a nuclear test in the near term, and China and Russia haven't tested their nuclear weapons in decades either, though both nations have been modernizing their arsenals in recent years. Jeff Brumfield, NPR News. President Trump is meeting with. with China's leader Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea.

The agenda is expect to include tariffs, semiconductor chips, and TikTok. Heading into the gathering, Trump-toed reporters, there is already agreement on many points. Tensions between the world's two largest economies have soared since Trump returned to office earlier this year. A Democratic bill to fund nutrition benefits during the government shutdown has once again failed in the Senate. As NPR's Barbara Sprunt reports, the measure needed. unanimous consent in order to pass. There's been massive dislocation of... Come November 1st, more than 40 million people are in danger of losing federal nutrition

assistance. Senate Majority Leader John Thune objected to the unanimous consent measure from Democrats. This isn't a political game. These are real people's lives that we're talking about. And you all have just figured out 29 days in that, oh, there might be some consequences. The Senate has tried to fund the government 13 times with a handful of Democrats. Democrats voting alongside Republicans. The rest of Democrats say they won't vote for a short-term spending measure unless Republicans agree to extend health care subsidies. Barbara Sprint and PR News. Hurricane Melissa remains on track to strike the Bahamas and bypass Bermuda after passing

over Cuba. At least 25 people were killed and 18 others are reported missing after Melissa left a trail of destruction across the Caribbean. Dennis Zulu is the U.N. resident coordinator in Jamaica and says the damage there is unprecedented, including damage to the island's infrastructure, homes, and power grids. Melissa has now been downgraded to a category two storm, but still threatens to cause flooding and storm surge in the Bahamas. On Wall Street stocks closed mix, the Dow Jones industrials gained 28 points.

The NASDAQ rose 23. U.S. futures are slightly lower in after-hours trading. You're listening to NPR. The Justice Department has suspended two federal prosecutors over a sentencing memo that referred to Trump supporters who participated in the Capitol riots as mob rioters. Assistant U.S. attorneys, Samuel White, and Carlos Valdiva had submitted a sentencing memo on Taylor Toronto, the man convicted of taking guns and ammunition to former President Obama's home. Toronto was arrested in 2023 while live streaming near Obama's Washington, D.C. residents. He was convicted of weapons charges in May. Toronto was among the roughly 1,500 January 6 defendants pardoned by President Trump.

China has launched a criminal probe into a Taiwanese lawmaker who's accused of advocating for Taiwan's independence from China. As NPR's Emily Fang reports, Taiwan is blasting the probe, saying that it is not under China's jurisdiction. Lawmaker Puma Shen in Taiwan is also an activist and a digital security researcher whose work has exposed bot farms run by Chinese companies and misinformation efforts he claims China is mounting to influence Taiwanese politics. This week, a municipal police bureau in China said it was investigating Shen under a Chinese anti-scession law. In particular, pointed to Shen's role in starting a civil defense organization in Taiwan that prepares Taiwanese citizens on how to survive a potential Chinese invasion. Taiwan's head of its National Security Council, Joseph Wu, wrote on X, the social media site, that the case against Shen shows Taiwan is, quote, on the frontline defending freedom. Emily Fang and Pierre News U.S. futures are flat and after-hours trading. This is NPR.