NPR News Now - NPR News: 10-30-2025 7PM EDT

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Hurst. The leaders of the world's two biggest economies met in South Korea today. President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping talked tariffs, and while they didn't reach trade agreements, they did pause other concerns. And here's Deepa Chivaram has more. One is basically that China agreed to pull back on some of the limits they had put on rare earth's exports. The other element was that China would resume buying soybeans from the U.S. immediately, That's, of course, been a major issue for American farmers since China halted those

shipments. And then the other thing is that Trump said this is the big number part, that tariffs on China would be lowered from 57 percent to 47 percent. And Pierce Depot Shiverom reporting from South Korea. Meanwhile, Trump ordered the Pentagon to start testing nuclear weapons immediately. Federal aid for the SNAP hunger relief program runs out Saturday because of the federal government shutdown. New York's governor, Kathy Hochel, declared. She declared a state of emergency, and she's promising to keep some food aid flowing.

And here's Brian Mann has more. Speaking in Harlem Hockel, a Democrat, said stopping aid for hunger relief would hurt farmers and food distributors as well as families and children. She called on the Republican-controlled Congress to use contingency funds before Saturday to keep snap food aid flowing. The clock's going to run out on 42 million Americans, including three million New Yorkers. Apparently, our cries for help, their cries for help, have fallen on deaf ears. As part of her emergency declaration, Hokel allocated $65 million in state money to support food banks and pantries. State agencies and schools will help distribute millions of meals. Republicans, meanwhile, have blamed Democrats in the Senate for delaying a new federal budget

as part of a partisan standoff over health care subsidies. Brian Mann, NPR News, New York. New proposals by the Department of Health and Human Services will dramatically restrict gender-affirming care for transgender youth. NPR Selina Simmons-Duffin reports the rules are being prepared for release in early November. The two proposed rules use Medicaid to try to force hospitals and doctors not to provide gender-affirming care for young people. One of the rules prohibits them from getting reimbursed for patients receiving this care who are covered by Medicaid. NPR obtained the draft text of this rule. The other rule is even more sweeping.

It would make not providing gender-affirming care for youth a condition for a hospital. to get Medicare and Medicaid payments at all. The new rules would not go into effect immediately, but there has already been a chilling effect on access to the care. Gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers, hormones, and rarely surgery, is not against any federal law, but it has been banned in 27 states in recent years. Selina Simmons-Duffin, NPR News, Washington. U.S. Futures contracts are trading higher at this hour. You're listening to NPR News, Washington. For years, most researchers believe that there was just one kind of Tyrannosaur, T-Rex. But new work suggests there were others. Ari Daniel has more.

The dueling dinosaurs fossil consists of two entangled skeletons, a triceratops and a small tyrannosaur, beautifully preserved. Most researchers have believed that Tyrannosaur was a juvenile T-Rex. But as soon as we started actually studying this specimen, we realized there were a lot of red flags. Lindsay Zano is head of paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. The animal had larger hands and more teeth than T-Rex and was fully grown when it died. This was Nanoturanus Landcensis, a different Tyrannosaur species whose existence was long dismissed by most paleontologists. In other words, T-Rex has been dethroned. There were other Tyrannosaurs.

For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel. California police say more than 1,000 objects, including antique Native American woven goods were stolen this month from the Oakland Museum. Police say someone broke into the museum's off-site storage facility in the early morning of October 15th. The theft was discovered the next day, but the museum didn't announce it to the public

because of the ongoing investigation. Officials say it's not clear how, many people were involved in the theft and that the museum hasn't yet determined the total value of the items stolen. I'm Janine Herbst, and you're listening to NPR News from Washington.