The Latest: US will share sensitive nuclear submarine technology with South Korea, Trump says

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The United States will share closely held technology to allow South Korea to build a nuclear-powered submarine, President Donald Trump said on social media after meeting with the country’s president during Trump’s ongoing trip to Asia.

President Lee Jae Myung stressed to Trump in their Wednesday meeting that the goal was to modernize the alliance with the U.S., noting plans to increase military spending to reduce the financial burden on America.

U.S. nuclear submarine technology is widely regarded as some of the most sensitive and highly guarded technology the military possesses.

Trump’s announcement comes ahead of his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, a chance for the leaders of the world’s two largest economies to stabilize relations after months of turmoil over trade issues. China possesses nuclear submarines, and North Korea in March unveiled for the first time a nuclear-powered submarine under construction. It’s a weapons system that can pose a major security threat to South Korea and the U.S.

Here's the latest:

The Chinese leader spoke for longer than Trump in his opening remarks, saying “it feels very warm seeing you again because it’s been many years.”

“We do not always see eye to eye with each other,” Xi said through a translator, adding that “it is normal for the two leading economies of the world to have frictions now and then.”

However, he said, China and the U.S. “are fully able to help each other succeed and prosper together.”

Shortly after their handshake, Trump and Xi moved to a room to hold their talks.

“It’s an honor to be with a friend of mine,” Trump said of Xi. He said the two will be having some discussions, but “I think we’ve already agreed to a lot of things.”

Accompanying Trump were trade representative Jamieson Greer, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and David Perdue, the U.S. ambassador to China.

State broadcaster CCTV says the meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has officially started.

Xi has arrived in the city of Busan, Chinese state media said.

There was no indication that the U.S. would start detonating warheads, and the military already regularly tests its missiles and other equipment.

The president suggested changes were necessary because other countries were testing their weapons. Russia has announced multiple tests recently.

Trump wrote on social media while en route to Busan that the Pentagon will “start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis” and “that process will begin immediately.”

The White House did not immediately respond to questions seeking more details.

He arrived via helicopter from Gyeongju, where he was attending the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

The meeting with Xi is Trump’s last engagement of his Asia trip before returning to Washington.

On social media, he said, “THE G2 WILL BE CONVENING SHORTLY!”

Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the Trump administration briefed Republicans — but not Democrats — on the U.S. military’s boat strikes in waters off South America.

The Senate is facing a potential vote on a war powers resolution that would prohibit strikes in or near Venezuela, unless Congress approves the military action.

“Shutting Democrats out of a briefing on U.S. military strikes and withholding the legal justification for those strikes from half the Senate is indefensible and dangerous,” Warner said in a statement. “Decisions about the use of American military force are not campaign strategy sessions, and they are not the private property of one political party.”

The briefing was by conducted by officials from the Defense and Justice departments for the GOP leadership and senators, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity because they are unauthorized to discuss it.

Warner demanded a similar briefing for the Democrats.

— Lisa Mascaro

A breakthrough on soybeans between Trump and Xi at their highly anticipated meeting in a couple of hours would be a political boost to the U.S. president, who is facing pressure from America’s farmers.

In the run-up to the summit in Busan, China has indicated it is willing to purchase soybeans again — which it hasn’t done from the U.S. since May. That has hurt American soybean farmers, who have relied on China as its biggest foreign customer.

“I think the message that our soybean farmers as a whole want to deliver is: ‘President Trump, we’ve had your back. We need you to have ours now,’” Caleb Ragland, the president of the American Soybean Association, told The Associated Press in September.

Trump has repeatedly proclaimed how much farmers support him and has promised an aid package as the agricultural industry grapples with the impact of his tariffs. No such package has come to fruition yet.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has left Beijing for South Korea, where he will meet Trump.

Chinese state media said Thursday that Xi is going to attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders meeting and a state visit to South Korea.

Xi’s entourage includes Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vice Premier He Lifeng, who has been heading the trade talks with the U.S., the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that the U.S. military carried out another strike on a boat he said was carrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing all four people aboard the vessel.

The Trump administration has been pursuing a divisive campaign against drug cartels in the waters off South America.

Hegseth said in a social media post that intelligence determined the craft was “transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics.” He said the strike was conducted in international waters and no U.S. forces were harmed.

The Trump administration has been conducting a nearly two-month campaign in the waters off of South America, while building up U.S. military forces in the region. The strike announced by Hegseth on Wednesday makes it the 14th since the campaign began, while the death toll has grown to at least 61.

The Republican representative’s district is one of five being targeted in a plan to give Democrats more winnable seats.

Under the proposal, three conservative stronghold counties in LaMalfa’s current district would share a representative with voters in some of the wealthiest and most liberal areas in California. LaMalfa’s new district would include many more Democratic voters.

California Democrats said the measure is a way to counter a Trump-backed plan in Texas to gain five more Republican seats.

The measure promises to give map-drawing power back after the 2030 Census to the independent commission that typically handles redistricting. LaMalfa warned at a press conference Wednesday in his district that Democrats won’t give that power back.

“It’s really a blatant power grab,” he said.

Voting concludes Nov. 4. Democrats have returned nearly twice as many ballots as Republicans.

The United States will share closely held technology to allow South Korea to build a nuclear-powered submarine, Trump said on social media Thursday after meeting with the country’s president.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung stressed to Trump in their Wednesday meeting that the goal was to modernize the alliance with the U.S., noting plans to increase military spending to reduce the financial burden on America.

The South Korean leader said there might have been a misunderstanding when they last spoke in August about nuclear-powered submarines, saying that his government was looking for nuclear fuel rather than weapons.

Lee said that if South Korea was equipped with nuclear-powered submarines, it could help U.S. activities in the region.

The money comes from various sources, including $2.5 billion from Trump’s big bill of tax breaks that was signed into law this summer.

It’s the second pay period for the military since the shutdown began — and the second time the administration moved money around to make sure service personnel don’t miss a paycheck.

The White House budget office also tapped $1.4 billion from a procurement account and another $1.4 billion from research and development.

The move was first reported by Axios and confirmed by a senior White House official who was unauthorized to discuss the situation and granted anonymity.

Unmentioned was the $130 million anonymous gift that Trump said a friend had given to help pay the troops — a sizable sum, but a very small amount compared to what’s needed for military pay.

Many other federal workers are being furloughed or required to work without pay during the shutdown, now in its 29th day.

— Lisa Mascaro

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry says most of Louisiana’s SNAP recipients can plan on receiving November benefits, but about 53,000 “able-bodied” recipients — who don’t share a household with children or disabled or older people — will be excluded from receiving funds.

A bipartisan move by the Legislature authorized $150 million in state funds to fill the expected federal lapse.

Nearly 800,000 Louisiana residents, or one-fifth of the population, are SNAP recipients.

During a press conference Wednesday, Landry said SNAP recipients who are older or disabled — or SNAP recipient households with children or disabled or older people — can expect to receive their regular benefits under state funds.

“Our priorities are specific, we’re going to protect the most vulnerable population in Louisiana,” Landry said.

Landry urged SNAP recipients who are ineligible to receive state funds to lean on food banks for help and seek job opportunities.

The court intervened Wednesday before Greg Bovino’s first late afternoon meeting with U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis.

Ellis wanted daily briefings after seeing video and other images of confrontations between immigration agents and the public. It is an unprecedented bid to impose real-time oversight on the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown after weeks of tense encounters and increasingly aggressive tactics by agents in the city.

▶ Read more about the blocked order

Democrats are ending the campaign to boost the party’s U.S. House seats in California with a burst of political star power.

Former President Barack Obama headlines a new ad that urges voters to approve so-called Proposition 50, which if approved would realign district boundaries to give Democrats as many as five additional seats in a bid to capture the majority next year and beat back Trump’s attempts to gain more Republican districts in Texas and other states.

Voting concludes Nov. 4. Democrats who put in a pitch for the proposal in the 30-second spot include Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom — who spearheaded the proposal — looks into the camera and says, “You have the power to stand up to Donald Trump.”

The ad was released on the same day a Public Policy Institute of California statewide poll found that 56% of likely voters would support the proposition if the election was held today. The poll from the nonpartisan institute said 43% were opposed and 1% had no opinion.

The Trump administration will be unable to deploy Guard troops to help with its immigration crackdown until at least the latter half of November, following a Supreme Court order Wednesday calling for more briefing.

The justices did not act on the administration’s emergency appeal of a lower-court ruling that has blocked the deployment of National Guard troops from Illinois and Texas.

The court set a Nov. 17 deadline for the final submissions, making it unlikely the justices will take action before then.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office laid out the stakes of the government shutdown at Thursday’s four-week mark, or if it keeps going longer, in response to a request from the House Budget Committee’s GOP chairman.

“The effects of the shutdown on the economy are uncertain,” the CBO said. “Those effects depend on decisions made by the Administration throughout the shutdown.”

The CBO estimates that the shutdown will reduce GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2025 by as much as 2 percentage points. But it said most of the decline eventually will be recovered.

Much of the spending that was halted on government pay and programs the CBO expects “will be made up” once government reopens.

Using estimates from the federal agencies and the White House’s budget office, it also said about 650,000 employees will be furloughed, on average, fewer than an initial assessment.

The Senate has blocked an effort to fast-track a bill that would keep two food assistance programs open during the government shutdown.

Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., sought unanimous consent to approve his bill to fund SNAP benefits, which the Trump administration says will end Saturday. The bill also would continue funding for a program that helps low-income mothers and children, known as WIC.

Lujan said the Trump administration should use billions of dollars in a contingency fund to pay for benefits during the shutdown.

“This pain does not need to happen,” Lujan said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Republicans have voted 13 times to fund SNAP and WIC as part of a short-term funding bill.

“We’re not going to pick winners and losers. It’s time to fund everybody,” Thune said before objecting to Lujan’s request, hence blocking it.

In a bipartisan effort, Louisiana lawmakers on Wednesday authorized $150 million in state funding to be used to avoid next month’s expected interruption in SNAP benefits.

The action still needs approval from Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who was the one who urged the Legislature to craft the resolution.

State Senate President Cameron Henry, a Republican, said his intent is for all Louisiana SNAP recipients — nearly 800,000 people — to receive their full monthly benefit amount. The resolution received near-unanimous approval on Wednesday with only one lawmaker voting against it.

In Louisiana, a state that is among the most impoverished and where nearly one-fifth of the population receives SNAP benefits, politicians say it’s imperative that there isn’t a lapse in food aid.

If the federal lapse extends beyond November, lawmakers say they will consider funding another month of benefits using a state savings account. However, tapping into the account requires more time and approval.

The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year as it seeks to shore up economic growth and hiring even as inflation stays elevated.

“Job gains have slowed this year, and the unemployment rate has edged up but remained low through August,” the Fed said in a statement Wednesday. “More recent indicators are consistent with these developments.” The government hasn’t issued unemployment data after August because of the shutdown. The Fed is watching private-sector figures instead.

Wednesday’s decision brings the Fed’s key rate down to about 3.9%, from about 4.1%. The central bank had cranked its rate to roughly 5.3% in 2023 and 2024 to combat the biggest inflation spike in four decades. Lower rates could, over time, reduce borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards, as well as for business loans.

▶ Read more about FED cuts

Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a floor speech that Trump’s move to involve the military in his political goals is endangering how Americans see U.S. troops.

Reed, who represents Rhode Island, challenged his Republican colleagues to speak against how Trump has taken rare moves to enmesh the military with politics.

“Once the military becomes politicized, it loses the trust of the American people. A military seen as serving a political party cannot claim to serve the nation,” Reed said.

Several tribal nations have declared a state of emergency in response to the federal shutdown and the upcoming loss of SNAP benefits.

In Montana, the Blackfeet Nation called the loss of SNAP benefits a “crisis” in its declaration, and in North Dakota, both the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Spirit Lake Nation made similar declarations to access emergency funding.

The majority of those utilizing the food assistance program in the Spirit Lake Nation are children, said Chairwoman Lonna Jackson-Street.

“If our kids can’t eat, then we’re all in crisis,” Street said. Winters can be particularly tough for the Spirit Lake Nation, which is about 80 miles from the Canadian border, and Street is worried that if the shutdown continues into the winter months some tribal citizens will have to choose between filling their propane tanks and buying groceries. “My fear is people are going to die.”

Sen. Roger Wicker and Rep. Mike Rogers, who chair their respective congressional committees on armed services, have issued a joint statement saying they “strongly oppose” the Trump administration’s decision not to send U.S. troops back to Romania.

“This decision also sends the wrong signal to Russia at the very moment President Trump is applying pressure to force Vladimir Putin to come to the table to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine,” the two Republican lawmakers say.

The U.S. has stationed roughly 1,000 troops at an air base in Romania, but after they were rotated out a month ago, the Department of Defense has decided not to replace them.

The joint statement speaks to growing concern in Congress, including from some Republicans, about how Trump is reconfiguring the U.S. military’s footing around the globe.

“If the president wanted to help feed hungry American children, he would,” said Rep. Angie Craig, the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee that handles the food aid program.

At a press conference at the Capitol, the Democrats said Trump has focused more on his priorities, including his new ballroom at the White House, than the everyday needs of Americans.

“I’m calling on the president to get back from Asia and do the right thing — and the moral thing,” Craig said.

“Where is the great dealmaker now?” asked Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C. “We’re ready to make a bipartisan deal that, first of all, would keep SNAP funded, that would reopen the government, that would extend the ACA tax credits — that would end the pain that’s being inflicted on the American people.”

National weather forecasters were able to provide critical warnings, collect satellite data and fly aircraft into the eye of powerful Hurricane Melissa during the government shutdown.

Experts say they saw no major problems with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s hurricane forecasting ability.

That work was critical ahead of Melissa’s landfall in Jamaica as a violent storm that is not expected to strike the United States. Many NOAA employees are considered essential, which means they are working during the shutdown without pay.

“They are carrying on as normal, without getting paid for their sometimes stressful and exhausting work,” said Kristen Corbosiero, professor and chair of the department of Atmospheric and environmental science at the University of Albany.

Weather forecasters have been among those hit by the Trump administration’s staff cuts, although some positions were reopened after concerns about dangerous understaffing.

The United States on Wednesday lifted sanctions against separatist Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and his family, turning back financial penalties that were imposed by the Biden administration in 2022.

Dodik is staunchly pro-Russian and has called for the Serb-run part of Bosnia to break off and join Serbia.

Until recently he was the president of the Bosnian Serb republic in Bosnia, sharing the tripartite presidency with a Bosniak and a Croat. Dodik agreed to step down this month after a Bosnian court banned him for politics over his separatist actions.

Dodik on X thanked Trump and his associates for “correcting a grave injustice.”

Vance, speaking on the New York Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast, said he had brought it up “in jest” with Rubio after Trump said his vice president and Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be “unstoppable” if they ran together on a presidential ticket.

He said he works with Rubio a lot and there would be no tension between them if they both considered campaigns for the presidency down the road.

“Marco is my best friend in the administration,” Vance said.

He said speculation about the 2028 presidential election is “feels so premature because we’re still so early.”

Vance said it is not a focus in his current role.

The Trump administration has been signaling it may have finally reached a deal with China to keep TikTok running in the U.S., with the two countries finalizing it as soon as Thursday.

Trump is visiting South Korea, where he’ll meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to de-escalate a trade war.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the two leaders will “consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea.”

If it happens, the deal would mark the end of months of uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the United States. After wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed — and President Joe Biden signed — a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it didn’t find a new owner in the place of China’s ByteDance, the platform was set to go dark on the law’s January deadline. For a several hours, it did. But on his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration tries to reach an agreement for the sale of the company.

▶ Read more about the Trump administration and TikTok

The Trump administration has made 2026 Affordable Care Act health insurance plans available for enrollees to browse ahead of the start of the open enrollment period Saturday.

Americans who live in states that use the federally facilitated marketplace can now use the Healthcare.gov website to check the costs of next year’s plans, which are expected to rise sharply next year because of increasing health costs and expiring subsidies that have made the plans cheaper for consumers.

Window shopping was already available in many of the states that manage their own versions of the ACA marketplace.

The unveiling of next year’s plans comes after Democratic senators urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to make them available as soon as possible. Amid large-scale federal employee furloughs during the government shutdown, CMS temporarily brought back all its workers Monday, in part to help manage the ACA open enrollment period.

Sen. John Thune says there’s been a “higher level of conversation” with Democrats this week about reopening the government, but the underlying dynamics of the impasse in the Senate remain the same.

Thune told reporters Democratic leadership is “out of the equation” and he’s pressing rank and file Democrats to vote to reopen the government before the Senate takes up talks to extend health care benefits.

However, that’s the strategy he’s been pursuing since the shutdown started nearly a month ago.