--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, October 31st. Happy Halloween. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, the final disgrace of Prince Andrew, the latest on Hurricane Melissa, and the Japanese stars taking center stage at this year's World Series. But first, to what President Trump and President Xi Jinping's face-to-face encounter might signal for future U.S.-China relations.
--:-- Lingling Wei: It became a relative truce of sorts. China agreed to a one-year pause on exports controls for rare earth minerals, key to U.S. defense manufacturing, and will end its boycott of American soybeans. Trump, meanwhile, said the U.S. would cut tariffs by 10 percentage points. The deal still needs to be formalized and details ironed out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump, meanwhile, said the U.S. would cut tariffs by 10 percentage points. The deal still needs to be formalized and details ironed out. But for Trump, the meeting was, as he rated it, a 12 out of 10.
--:-- Donald Trump: I thought it was an amazing meeting. He's a great leader, a leader of a very powerful, very strong country, China. And we, what can I say? We have, it was an outstanding group of decisions, I think, that was made. And a lot of decisions were made. There wasn't too much left out there.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The actual numbers, wrote the Wall Street Journal, were modest. It's not a trade deal, and tariffs remain high by historical standards.
--:-- Lingling Wei: But Trump's super positive reaction and the conversation that sparked it signals something bigger between the two leaders. President Trump has talked about going to China early next year, around April, And then that would be followed by a state visit by Xi Jinping to the United States.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So this trade truce basically is part of what could be well-structured, high-level dialogue, leader-led diplomacy. This marks a pretty big departure from the hawkishness with which Trump approached China in his first term as president.
--:-- Lingling Wei: China's pattern of misconduct is well known. For decades, they've ripped off the United States like no one has ever done before. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year were lost. He basically killed engagement. This idea of U.S. trying to engage with China economically with the hope of making China a more open society, a more politically reformed country. Ongoing, recurring dialogue was basically demolished.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Which didn't come as much of a surprise given that Trump first campaigned on taking an aggressive stance toward China, describing the country as an economic enemy at one point.
--:-- Lingling Wei: In large part at that time, he was zagging away from some of the policies of his predecessors. President Clinton helped shepherd and champion legislation granting China permanent normal trade relations within the World Trade Organization. President Obama had what came to be known as a pivot to Asia strategy that involved diplomatic and economic planks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, analysts and experts Wei spoke with say that a new kind of relationship is forming that's built more on mutual need and a recognition that confrontation has become too costly for both countries.
--:-- Lingling Wei: She told us for Trump the upside is that he gets to project that his tough approach resulted in some concessions and brought Xi back to the table And there's an angle for Xi, too. China's economy is struggling. It has been a multi-year-long slowdown. Having a regular dialogue with the American president could give Xi Jinping, you know, a chance to show to his own people and the rest of the world that he has successfully managed the confrontation from the United States.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And China is a more responsible party in this fight. And the prospect of a state visit to Washington sometime in 2026 is a prize all in its own way, writes. She hasn't been hosted by an American president since Obama in 2015.
--:-- [Music transitions to a new segment]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to the fall of a British prince. Yesterday, Andrew Windsor, the disgraced third child of the late Queen Elizabeth II, was stripped of his royal titles and forced to give up his mansion.
--:-- Fiona Bruce: So, Prince Andrew. The king has initiated a process. Prince Andrew will no longer be Prince Andrew. Andrew is now an ordinary citizen, and he's been exiled entirely from the family.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This all centers on increasing scrutiny around his close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, and the allegations by an American, Virginia Giffray. She accused Andrew of sexually assaulting her in 2001 while she was a teenager and a victim of Epstein's.
--:-- Fiona Bruce: She died by suicide earlier this year, and her recent posthumous memoir has resurfaced old abuse allegations. Andrew has always denied the claims and said he had no memory of meeting her, despite a photograph of them standing together with Ghislaine Maxwell.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In a statement yesterday, Giffray's family said that, quote, an ordinary American girl had brought down a British prince.
--:-- Fiona Bruce: These allegations against Andrew aren't new. In fact, they date back years. But his many attempts to move on from them have only inflamed the public anger toward him.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Back in 2019, he broke his silence in a BBC interview that went so badly, both Netflix and Amazon Prime turned it into TV dramas.
--:-- Fiona Bruce: Andrew reportedly thought the interview had gone well, but he was universally criticized for showing no remorse, failing to apologize to Epstein's victims, and offering a strange defense against Jufres' claims.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Andrew was protected. He knew he was. And that's how he behaved in such a brave and shameless way. And he continues to behave in that way because he feels that he still holds the cards, even though his protector, his main protector, the Queen, is dead.
--:-- Fiona Bruce: It is extremely unusual for a prince to lose their title. The last time it happened was back in World War I, when a prince backed the Germans.
--:-- Shamita Basu: King Charles will now foot the bill for Andrew's new accommodation from his own private wealth.
--:-- [Music transitions to a new segment]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn now to the World Series, which will reach its dramatic end either tonight or tomorrow. The Toronto Blue Jays currently lead the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-2 in the best of seven series going into this evening's matchup.
--:-- Evan Drellick: And so far, it's had some pretty spectacular drama, including an 18-inning marathon game that ended in a walk-off homer at nearly midnight in Los Angeles earlier this week after almost seven hours of baseball.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In Los Angeles, Freeman sends a fly ball to center field. Varsho's going back before the clock strikes midnight. Bobby Freeman has ended it. It's a repeat.
--:-- Evan Drellick: Incredibly, when Freeman hit that homer, it was 2.50 a.m. on the East Coast, and more than 8 million people were still watching the game.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's not to mention heroics from the Blue Jays that have helped them fight back in the series with a chance to win it all.
--:-- Evan Drellick: But in order to do that, they're going to have to go through Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers ace from Japan who is on the mound tonight.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yamamoto notably pitched a complete game in Game 2, his second straight of the playoffs, a feat that's practically unheard of these days.
--:-- Evan Drellick: He, along with two-way superstar Shohei Otani and pitcher Roki Sasaki, make up the Dodgers' young, dynamic core, who all hail from Japan.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The inroads the Japanese players are making into U.S. baseball is really incredible.
--:-- Evan Drellick: There's evidence that baseball lovers in Japan are tuning in in droves to see these guys play. According to metrics compiled by MLB, Japanese viewership of the first game in the series was the most watched on a single network in the country in World Series history.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As Japanese fans crave more of their homegrown hero in Otani, Drellick told us Japanese influence is unmistakable in Dodger Stadium.
--:-- Evan Drellick: In the stadium, it's something you can't possibly miss. There are just so many advertisements for Japanese companies throughout billboards and signage.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You do see the Japanese companies trying to make inroads in L.A. through the Dodgers, and why shouldn't they? There plenty of Japanese fans who are coming over not just for the postseason but for the regular season just to see a game to watch Otani.
--:-- Evan Drellick: Even food vendors are taking note offering traditional takuyaki katsu curry and as Eater LA described it, shockingly good sushi for a ballpark.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, it should be said that Japanese players in the U.S. is nothing new, but Otani is helping to take it to new heights.
--:-- Evan Drellick: Major League Baseball has been given this unbelievable gift. And when you have that player who's drawing all this attention abroad, you would be derelict if you were Major League Baseball if you weren't trying to also capitalize on that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Overall, this World Series might feel a little more worldly, generally speaking, as Canadians are also tuning in in record numbers to see the Blue Jays.
--:-- [Music transitions to a new segment]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. Hurricane Melissa made its way over Bermuda Thursday after leaving behind a catastrophic trail of destruction in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In Jamaica's St. Elizabeth, which was hit especially hard by the storm, officials said the main drag in the area was completely flattened, with stores and other buildings wiped out.
--:-- [Music transitions to a new segment]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, in Haiti, 30 people were killed, and another 20 people are reported missing. And in Cuba, about 2 million people were left in urgent need of supplies, medical care and shelter.
--:-- [Music transitions to a new segment]
--:-- Shamita Basu: NBC News reports humanitarian aid efforts are underway as thousands of pounds of food and things like water purification kits and medical supplies are being sent.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The storm is expected to lose intensity as it moves further north in the Atlantic over the weekend.
--:-- [Music transitions to a new segment]
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Trump administration announced on Thursday it will cap the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. this year to 7,500, a record low.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For comparison, the Biden administration capped the number of refugees at 125,000 last year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The bulk of the spots for refugees will also be reserved for white South Africans. This comes months after Trump confronted their leader with false claims of murder and persecution of white South Africans.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The administration said the decision was justified by the national interest and humanitarian concerns.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The CEO of Global Refuge, a nonprofit, said the reduction, quote, doesn't just lower the refugee admission ceiling, it lowers our moral standing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And with the government shutdown now passing the 30-day mark, a central figure in the funding debate is Russell Vogt, the director of the Office of Management and Budget.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For this week's episode of Apple News in Conversation, I spoke with Andy Kroll, an investigative reporter for ProPublica, about how Vogt has come to be known as the shadow president.
--:-- Andy Kroll: They said to me, Andy, we're spending so much time hashing it out with OMB that it feels like on a day-to-day basis, Russ Vogt is our commander-in-chief, not Donald Trump, because he's the guy who just sort of lives largest in our heads right now.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, you can follow Apple News In Conversation to find that episode or come back to the Apple News Today feed tomorrow. All new episodes of In Conversation will be available there on Saturdays, too.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Enjoy your Halloween weekend and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
