NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-30-2025 6PM EDT

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. President Trump is back in Washington after his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and South Korea. The two leaders didn't reach a deal on trade issues, but NPR's Emily Fang reports some critical issues have been paused. China's most devastating threat and your total export ban on products containing rare earth materials the U.S. cannot make itself has now been paused. And Xi Jinping agreed China will again buy U.S. soybeans. Despite fears that China would push the U.S. to say something on Taiwan, Trump said the topic never came up. China wants to control the Democratic island that Beijing claims is theirs. U.S. trade representative James and Greer weighed in on another heated point of contention,

and that is China's desire to buy powerful invidious semiconductor chips that are crucial to some artificial intelligence capabilities. Greer said it would need to be discussed later. Emily Fang and Pierre News. 42 million people around the country are preparing to cope with a looming pause of supplemental nutritious assistance program or SNAP if the federal government shutdown doesn't end. Grant Blankenship of Georgia Public Broadcasting has more. About 1 and 8 people in Georgia rely on SNAP, but so far Governor Brian Kemp says he won't dip into the state's $14.6 billion budget surplus to help feed them during the shutdown. Meanwhile, food banks have been struggling with shortages since a $1 billion, cut to USDA programs in March.

Working mom, Ashley Stevenson, couldn't find any food at either of the two pantries she checked in the city of Macon. We're looking at feeding three kids with barely anything after bills and everything else. Unfortunately, the government is not doing its job and the people are being screwed because of it. Stevenson says she doesn't know what her next move will be. For NPR News, I'm Grant Blankenship. Macon, Georgia.

Hurricane Melissa is approaching Bermuda as a category to hurricane after causing more than two dozen deaths and property damage across the Caribbean as one of the region's most powerful storms in the past century. Imper's Rebecca Herscher reports, climate change made the 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 Hersher, NPR News. Wall Street, lower by the closing bell. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. United Nations officials say it's difficult to estimate just how many civilians have been killed in El Fasher, a city in Sudan's Darfur region, that fell to a brutal paramilitary force. The UN says there are credible reports of executions, including the killing of 500 people at a maternity ward, as NPR's Michelle Kellerman reports.

Nowhere is safe in El Fasher. That was the message of one top UN official Martha Pobie in her briefing to the Security Council. The UN's emergency relief coordinator, Tom Fletcher, says this recalls the horrors of the genocide in Darfur two decades ago. But what is different today is that we're seeing a different global reaction, one of resignation. So this is also a crisis of apathy. The conflict is not just a civil war between Sudan's army and the rapid support forces, paramilitary that took over El Fosher. The RSF gets support from the United Arab Emirates and other regional players are backing the Army. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the State Department.

French authorities have arrested five more people over the Louvre crown jewel heist that makes seven suspects total in custody. The jewels, however, haven't been found. The loot is estimated to be worth $102 million and includes a diamond and emerald necklace that Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise as a wedding gift. Only one relic has been found to Empress Eugenie's crown, which was dropped during the escape. Officials say it is damaged, but it's salvageable. I'm Janine Herbst, and you're listening to NPR News from Washington.