Thursday morning news: October 30, 2025

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Trump-Xi meeting preview » Air Force One is en route back to Washington, just hours after President Trump met face to face with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea, looking to tamp down trade tensions.

Just ahead of that meeting, Trump, standing alongside the Chinese leader, told reporters:

TRUMP:  And we're gonna have a very successful meeting. I have no doubt. But he's a very tough negotiator.

Days earlier, both sides agreed on a framework for a trade deal … for the two leaders to discuss while in South Korea.

The reported terms of the framework would see the United States halt planned higher tariffs on Chinese goods for now. And Beijing would hit the pause button on new controls on the export of rare earth minerals.

Trump meets with South Korean president » President Trump also met with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung. And Trump told reporters:

TRUMP:  A lot was determined and we made our deal. We pretty much finalized a, a trade deal and we discussed some other things having to do with, uh, national security, etc.

Related to national security, the United States will share closely held technology to allow South Korea to build a nuclear-powered submarine. Lee Jae Myung highlighted plans to increase military spending to reduce the financial burden on Washington.

Israel latest » Israel is renewing its commitment to the ceasefire with Hamas after launching airstrikes in the Gaza Strip Tuesday night.

Those strikes came after an Israeli soldier was killed when Palestinian militants opened fire on Israeli forces in Gaza hours earlier.

But President Trump says he’s confident the ceasefire is durable.

TRUMP:  I think it's gonna hold for a long time, hopefully forever. Hopefully that's an everlasting one too.

Meantime in Jerusalem:

SOUND: [Rifle salute for Israeli soldier]

Mourners gathered for the funeral of that fallen soldier, 37-year-old Master Sergeant Yona Feldbaum.

Hamas denies any knowledge of the attack that killed him.

And in the Gaza Strip, mourners buried some of the dead from those airstrikes Tuesday night Israeli airstrikes.

SOUND: [Mourners in Gaza]

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry claims more than 100 were killed in those strikes.

The Israeli military said it killed 30 terrorists holding command positions.

Fed rate cut » The Federal Reserve has announced its second interest rate cut of the year.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the decision was made more difficult due to the government shutdown, as the government has not been putting out jobs and economic reports.

But he said based on what the Fed can gather:

POWELL:  In this less dynamic and somewhat softer labor market, the downside risks to employment appear to have risen in recent months.

And that was a major factor in the central bank’s decision to cut its key rate by another quarter-point.

But Powell said that data available from before the shutdown suggested that growth and economic activity may be on a better trajectory than expected. He pointed to stronger consumer spending.

He added that while the Fed may cut rates again in December, that is far from a sure bet.

Hurricane Melissa » Hurricane Melissa is now taking aim at Bermuda after tearing through the Caribbean and Bahamas.

The storm had weakened to a Category 1, but Mike Brennan with the National Hurricane Center warned on Wednesday:

BRENNAN:  The size of the storm gonna increase, uh, system could restrengthen a little bit over the next 12 to 24 hours. So we are expecting hurricane conditions in Bermuda late Thursday and Thursday night where we have a hurricane warning in place.

The good news is that right now, Bermuda is not expected to take a direct hit.

But the storm has already left catastrophic destruction in its wake.

It slammed Jamaica on Tuesday as a monstrous Category 5 storm, one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded.

One resident described the devastation:

MITCHELL: It's gone terrible, because all the foods, food, trees, everything washed away.

185 mile-per-hour winds, storm surge and flooding also washed out roads and destroyed the power grid in some places.

The storm also lashed Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.

Melissa is blamed for at least 30 deaths in the Caribbean.

Crackdown on violent anti-ICE protesters » Acting US attorney Bill Essayli has announced the arrest of 10 people charged with engaging in violence directed at law enforcement and civil disorder over ICE operations in LA this summer:

ESSAYLI:  Violence in any form, specifically targeted at law enforcement is unacceptable and illegal.

Ninety-seven people have been charged with related crimes since June.

Essayli said 18 suspects have pleaded guilty, and 16 are in what he called a post-complaint and pre-indictment stage.

Forty-four are set for trial between now and the spring.

ESSAYLI: Two defendants charged in today's complaint were recorded lighting debris on fire and throwing it at CHP vehicles, pouring what appeared to be flammable liquid, which increased the size of the flames.

Others are accused of throwing rocks, bottles, and pepper spraying officers.

Sudan Maternity hospital deaths » In Sudan, officials say hundreds of people were killed inside a maternity hospital. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher reports.

BENJAMIN EICHER: The World Health Organization —or W-H-O, says more than 460 patients and their companions were killed at the Saudi Maternity Hospital in El-Fasher.

But exactly how it happened remains unclear.

Local witnesses told reporters that shelling and gunfire struck the hospital repeatedly over the past week.

The city had been under siege for months, and the killings occurred shortly after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces seized control last weekend.

Doctors in Sudan have accused RSF fighters of executing patients and staff inside the hospital.

But the WHO has not confirmed who carried out the attack or whether the hospital itself was deliberately targeted.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: feeling the pinch from the partial government shutdown. Plus, we head back to New Mexico to hear how the successful reintroduction of wolves into the wild comes with some challenges.

This is The World and Everything in It.

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