NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-30-2025 1PM EDT

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. President Trump is on his way back to Washington, D.C. after a high-stakes meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The president spoke with reporters afterward and said he rated the meeting with Xi a 12 out of 10. Here's NPR's deepest shiverum. Trump says he and she came to an agreement on a trade deal, but it hasn't been finalized just yet. There was an outstanding group of decisions, I think, that was made. A lot of decisions were made to. There wasn't too much left out there.

The U.S. will lower tariffs on China from 57 to 47 percent because of Xi's commitment to reduce the flow of fentanyl, Trump says. China will also start repurchasing soybeans from the U.S. and stop the recent limit on rare earths exports that was announced a few weeks ago. Trump says he will visit China next April and she will. will come to the U.S. after that. Deepa Chivaram, NPR News, Jiangju, Korea. Hurricane Melissa is approaching Bermuda as a category two hurricane after tearing through Hispaniola, Jamaica, Cuba, and the Bahamas. As one of the region's most powerful storms in the past 100 years, the storm has claimed at least 30 lives. Tens of thousands of people have been

displaced. A majority of the fatalities are reported in Haiti. NPR's Rebecca Hersher reports that according to a rapid scientific analysis, climate change made such a disaster about four times more likely. Scientists at Imperial College in the United Kingdom study the role of climate change in individual weather events like heat waves and hurricanes. To study Hurricane Melissa, they used computer models to compare what actually happened to what would have happened if the planet was the temperature it used to be back in the 1950s. Their findings indicate climate change made it four times more likely a Category 5 storm would make landfall in Jamaica. In other words, this disaster would have been much less likely without global warming.

Rebecca Herscher, NPR News. A Senate confirmation hearing on President Trump's nominee for Surgeon General is on hold. NPR's Wollstone reports Dr. Casey Means is having a baby. The Senate hearing was delayed because Casey Means went into labor. The hearing was already scheduled to happen virtually. so she didn't have to travel so late in her pregnancy. Means is currently in Hawaii. It's not clear now when the hearing will be rescheduled. Means is an ally of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but many in public health and medicine argue she's not qualified for the job. While she did go to Stanford Medical

School, she never completed her training to become a surgeon. She gained popularity over the past year after publishing a book on diet and metabolic health and going on prominent podcasts, and her brother has been a close advisor to Secretary Kennedy. Will Stone, NPR News. This is NPR News. The British Parliament is taking rare action against a member of the royal family. In London, NPR's Law and Fair reports

on the ongoing fallout of Prince Andrews' controversial friendship with a financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein six years after Epstein's apparent death by suicide in a New York City jail. Parliament's spending watchdog is asking the, UK Treasury and the Crown Estate, which manages property owned by the royals, to explain why Prince Andrew is still living rent-free in a 30-room Royal Lodge on the grounds of Windsor Castle. The watchdog is giving them until the end of November to explain how the prince's living

arrangements are, quote, achieving the best value for money for UK taxpayers. This month in a posthumous memoir, one of Jeffrey Epstein's accusers said she had sex with the prince, too, when she was 17. Andrew denies it. Then this week, photos emerged of Andrew hosting Epstein and convicted rapist and former movie producer Harvey Weinstein together at the prince's daughter's 18th birthday. Lauren Freyer and PR News, London. Andrew recently relinquished some of his royal titles and honors and step back from royal duties. The Paris prosecutor says authorities have captured five more suspects nearly two weeks after the historic jewel heist at the Louvre. The official tells local media investigators believe they now have three of the four.

people who allegedly broke into the museum and stole the jewels. The theft took place shortly after the museum open and took only about a few minutes. The jewels were previously estimated to have a value equivalent to more than $100 million. The jewels have yet to be recovered. The Dow is up 135 points. It's NPR News.