NICK SCHIFRIN: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, President Trump makes his first trip to Asia of his second term as he seeks a trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Inside China, the government launches the most widespread crackdown on the country's Christians in years.

And the experimental treatment offering hope to the millions of Americans who struggle with chronic pain.

WOMAN: Even today like I've had a 7 out of 10 migraine all day today.

I still got up, I still did my errands.

And it's something that people living in chronic pain are just forced to do.

(BREAK) NICK SCHIFRIN: Good evening, I'm Nick Schifrin.

John Yang is away.

Tonight, President Donald Trump is predicting he and Chinese President Xi Jinping will sign a quote, comprehensive trade deal during Mr.

Trump's first visit to Asia since returning to the White House.

The high stakes trip comes as the president faces a constellation of international challenges, from the relationship between the world's two largest economies to trying to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

NICK SCHIFRIN (voice-over): On his way to Asia, President Trump made a pit stop in Doha to greet Qatari leaders who helped broker the Gaza ceasefire.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S.

President: And you have a safe Middle East right now and you're going to keep it that way for a long time.

NICK SCHIFRIN (voice-over): But what lies ahead is perhaps the single most important meeting of his new term with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

President Trump says he's looking to make a trade deal to avoid threaten.

157 percent tariffs.

The U.S.

wants Beijing to buy more American soybeans.

There are also tensions over technology, critical minerals and Taiwan.

But the U.S.

will not walk away from Taiwan in pursuit of a Chinese trade deal.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said tonight.

MAN: Will China need to make concessions to get a deal?

TRUMP: Yeah, sure they'll have to make concessions.

I guess we would too.

NICK SCHIFRIN (voice-over): The president says he has no plans to repeat his high profile meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but that he'd be willing to meet.

TRUMP: He knows I'm coming and he would.

Yeah, I'd be open to it 100 percent.

I got along very well with Kim Jong Un.

NICK SCHIFRIN (voice-over): But ongoing wars loom on the President's agenda this morning.

In Ukraine, smoke filled a residential neighborhood after an overnight Russian attack.

And in Gaza, the Israeli military said it conducted an airstrike against an imminent threat.

Despite the ceasefire.

In southern Gaza, trucks are rolling in as U.N.

agencies are rushing in badly needed aid.

Earlier today, I talked with the World Food Program's country director, Antoine Renard.

ANTOINE RENARD, World Food Programme: Two weeks now since the ceasefire, we've reached now 320,000 people directly with food boxes.

We manage also to scale up bread, and we have now 15 bakeries that are fully up and running.

22 hours out of 24 is practically 700,000 people that are getting fresh bread on daily basis.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The need, of course, has been absolutely massive.

The international organization that declares famine has said that there was famine in northern Gaza before the cease fire.

Are you actually able to reach all the people who need this help the most?

ANTOINE RENARD: Well, the level and the scale of what we've managed to do is not yet sufficient versus what we should actually be doing.

When I was mentioning 320,000 people that are getting now food boxes, it's only 20 percent of what we supposed to reach on a monthly basis.

We've entered 10,000 metric tons of food into Gaza.

This is 1/6 of what WFP should bring just to cover staple food for a full month.

We manage actually now to reach this population in Gaza City.

That is where we need now to go for what used to be in July, one meal on average per day.

We're already getting to two meals.

But what we need to gear up is the quality of the meals that are out there.

Some of the families I was with even post this fire where they were telling me they just dream of chicken and eggs.

But many of these goods because they are not coming sufficiently into Gaza, they cost a fortune, they can't afford it.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Israel has long argued that Hamas and gangs were stinking, stealing food or looting trucks.

What are you going to be able to do to prevent that from happening?

ANTOINE RENARD: Well, we've always flagged that there were no evidence related to any of the humanitarian good that was actually on the ground.

When I look at the World Food Programme, the humanitarian distribution systems is actually perhaps the most robust related to get the assistance in Gaza.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And how important is it that this cease fire holds and turns into a permanent peace?

ANTOINE RENARD: Well, that one is perhaps the most important.

I mean sitting with people in Gaza City or in Deir al-Balah just, you know, a week and a half ago, I can tell you that one of the main message that was getting from the population, one of the family was telling me we will not anymore be in capacity to survive if we are getting again bombs on our head.

And I think that now there is, let's say, a sentiment of hope.

But we need to be cautious.

We owe it to the civilian population that are in Gaza now that hostages have been released, the ones that were alive.

The fact that you have civilians that have been so dire to get out of two years of war, I think the international community or to the people in Gaza not to face a conflict anymore.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Antoine Renard, country director for the World Food Programme, thank you very much.

ANTOINE RENARD: Thanks to you, Nick.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Tonight, President Trump suggested for the first time that Hamas faced a deadline to hand over the remaining deceased hostages.

He wrote on Truth Social.

Let's see what they do over the next 48 hours.

I'm watching this very closely.

In tonight's other headlines, Melissa is now a hurricane in the northern Caribbean.

The storm is rapidly intensifying and the National Hurricane center warns it will become a major hurricane by tomorrow bringing catastrophic and life threatening flash flooding to Jamaica and Haiti.

The storm is already blamed for at least four deaths.

Landslides, heavy rain and damaging wind are also likely in the Dominican Republic and eastern Cuba.

It is not expected to make landfall in the US.

As the government shutdown stretches into a 25th day, there are new details tonight about the anonymous donor who volunteered to pay U.S.

troops.

The new York Times reports Timothy Mellon is the person behind the $130 million donation.

Mellon is a billionaire banking and railroad heir and major financial backer of President Trump.

Despite the large gift, it amounts to about $100 for each of the country's 1.3 million service members.

Early voting is underway in two of this year's highest profile elections that are expected to measure voter sentiment ahead of next year's midterms.

In the New York City mayoral race, voters are choosing between Democrat Zorhan Mamdani, Republican Curtis Sliwa and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who's running as an independent.

The winner will take over from Eric Adams, who dropped out of the race last month and endorsed Cuomo this week.

And in the New Jersey governor's race, the cost of living and President Trump's policies have taken center stage.

Polls show Republican state Assemblymen Jack Citarelli slightly trailing Democratic Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill.

And the demolition of the East Wing of the White House wrapped this week, but plans for the new ballroom that will replace it are far from complete.

Late Friday, President Trump denied reports that he plans to name the addition after himself.

DONALD TRUMP: That was fake.

You probably going to call it the Presidential Ballroom or something like that.

We haven't really thought about a name yet.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The president also said if there were any funds left over after the more than $300 million ballroom is complete, they could help pay for an arch being built across from the Lincoln Memorial for the nation's 250th anniversary.

Still to come on PBS News Weekend, the largest crackdown on Christians inside China in years.

And we meet a nurse in Uganda who climbs thousand foot ladders to save lives.

(BREAK) NICK SCHIFRIN: Next week, when President Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping, much of the talk will be about trade.

But as he's done before when facing Trump pressure, Xi has launched a major crackdown on the country's Christians.

There are tens of millions of Christians in China, and earlier this month, Beijing arrested a prominent underground church pastor and more than 20 other clergy and parishioners.

In 2019, I traveled to China and saw firsthand how the faithful are often forced to pray behind closed doors.

NICK SCHIFRIN (voice-over): On the sixth floor of a Beijing apartment building, an unmarked door.

Inside a secret church for those prohibited from praying in public.

Xu Yonghai is the pastor of the Holy Love Fellowship and his congregation among China's most vulnerable Christians, critics of the Communist government.

His sanctuary, also his apartment and bedroom.

There was good reason for secrecy.

XU YONGHAI, Holy Love Fellowship (through translator): Since 2014, religious freedom has reduced.

On January 24, 2014, were taken to the police station.

Thirteen of us were detained as criminals for one month.

NICK SCHIFRIN (voice-over): By then, Xu had already been arrested three times.

But 2014 was the first time that authorities detained his entire parish.

XU YONGHAI (through translator): We were arrested because we defended the rights of other churches.

NICK SCHIFRIN (voice-over): Christian activists say the government has demolished thousands of unsanctioned churches.

There are some government approved ministries, but they have to display banners like this one that says implement the basic direction of the Communist Party's religious work.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has described minorities and their cultures and religions as threats to stability.

Most audaciously, in 2017, Beijing set up what activists call concentration camps for Muslim Uyghurs, crack down on their language and culture, and later move them into forced labor.

The U.S.

Accused Beijing of genocide.

The next year, Beijing banned Zion Church, one of the capital's largest house churches when pastors refused to install facial recognition cameras.

The church was forced to go mostly virtual.

Xu Yonghai told me his church and its parishioners were also under surveillance.

XU YONGHAI (through translator): They knew about our church, and the police had also come to our church.

But relatively speaking, were able to persist.

Our persistence is our main grace.

NICK SCHIFRIN (voice-over): For Zion Church instead of dying out, back in 2018, the congregation grew from 1,500 to more than 10,000 daily worshippers across 40 cities.

But today, facing domestic economic headwinds and once again pressure from a President Trump, the government has again cracked down on Christians and Zion Church's leader, Ezra Jing Mingli.

Earlier this month, Beijing rounded him up and detained more than 20 of his fellow parishioners.

NICK SCHIFRIN: I'm now joined by Grace Jin Drexel and Bill Drexel, the daughter and son in law of Zion Church founder Ezra Jin Mingri.

Thanks very much.

Welcome.

Grace Jen Drexel, let me start with you.

What happened when your father was arrested?

GRACE JIN DREXEL, Daughter of Ezra Jin Mingri: On October 9th, 10th and 11th, initially, up to 30 leaders of the church were taken away from nine different cities, including my father.

My father has severe diabetes and they are not allowing him to use his own medication and we're worried about his health.

NICK SCHIFRIN: How are you holding up?

GRACE JIN DREXEL: My mother and I and my two brothers, we're all in the U.S.

and we feel generally pretty safe that we are protected by our government's.

At the same time, to know that our loved ones are in China and we can't do anything and that they are unjustly detained just for their freedom of faith is really shocking to us.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Bill Drexel, of course, this is not the first time that Xi Jinping's Beijing has clamped down on Christians, nor is it the first time, in fact, that Xi Jinping has targeted the Zion Church.

So how is this part of a trend of Xi Jinping's China?

BILL DREXEL, Son-in-Law of Ezra Jin Mingri: Yeah, Xi Jinping's China has, from the beginning, really tried to push an ideological agenda.

And part of that has been tightening the screws on religious groups, not just Christians, but all religious groups across China.

Their first big push on this was around 2018, 2019, as you've researched, and now it seems like they're trying to finish what they started there or what was left unfinished.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And not just Christians against Uyghurs, against Muslims, against all kind of minority ethnic thought, religion and culture.

BILL DREXEL: Right.

What's the irony is his efforts to actually clamp down on Zion Church and many of the churches have really backfired because they took the physical meeting space of Zion Church.

They had to develop this kind of hybrid, online, offline, decentralized model that when COVID hit, actually really expanded dramatically.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Grace Jin, your father actually worked for a state sponsored church early on.

What was that like?

And why did he decide to launch an unsanctioned church?

GRACE JIN DREXEL: Many people in the U.S.

might think that a state sanctioned church, why don't you just join and just get legalized.

But what we don't really understand is that in China it means that you are in an ultimate control of this Communist -- Chinese Communist Party.

So for example, what kind of sermons you can preach on Sunday, how many people can be baptized?

Children are not allowed to be at churches because there's a law in China that says you can't proselytize to anyone under 18.

And so you ultimately realize that is a church that is in hostage.

It is not a free church.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Xi Jinping is traveling to South Korea next week.

He will meet with President Trump during that trip.

What's your message to President Trump ahead of that meeting?

BILL DREXEL: Our hope is that as a precondition, as a sign of goodwill, whatever it takes.

We would love for him to send a clear message to the Communist Party, to Xi Jinping, that taking prisoners of conscience as hostage in advance of these sorts of negotiations is not all right and that these prisoners need to be freed.

GRACE JIN DREXEL: Ultimately, I think this is beyond U.S.-China relations.

This is, I think, just a freedom of religion issue.

And I really again ask the global church to rise up and pray with us on asking my father and the 22 others to be released.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Grace Jin Drexel and Bill Drexel, thank you very much, both of you.

GRACE JIN DREXEL: Thank you so much.

BILL DREXEL: Thank you.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The CDC says chronic pain affects more than 50 million Americans.

Persistent pain that lasts beyond a typical recovery period can be debilitating.

And finding the right treatment is a challenge.

But now a recent study could provide a glimmer of hope.

Ali Rogin recently spoke with Pam Belluck, health and science reporter for the New York Times.

ALI ROGIN: Pam Belluck, thank you so much for joining us.

Before we jump in, I'd like to play a collection of interviews we did with people living in chronic pain from across the country.

JOANNA BLACKHEART: It ranges from things as being as simple as, you know, having something like back pain that you may experience on a daily basis, to literally not being able to get out of bed to be able to brush your teeth.

ANDREW GOETZE: The simple act of driving to work makes the commute extremely painful.

REBECCA LUCIER: I start my mornings, you know, assessing which joint needs to kind of be put back in place, and then my day goes from there.

MEG MINDLIN: Even today, like, I've had a 7 out of 10 migraine all day today.

I still got up, I still did my errands.

And it's something that people living in chronic pain are just forced to do.

ANDREW GOETZE: I have had to cancel outings on weekends, local trips around the area, just for the simple fact of waking up and rolling out of bed and realizing that day was just going to be Tylenol and couch and ice and heat and hope for the best.

REBECCA LUCIER: I look totally fine, but I'm dealing with an invisible illness, and that's very frustrating because I'm in a lot of pain.

But I mask it.

JOANA BLACKHEART: You know, you might see someone suffering in public, and they could very easily be hiding it because they just have to.

But also sometimes it's not possible to do that.

It's a unique kind of torture.

ANDREW GOETZE: The sort of guilt and shame, at least I feel of questioning, you know, could I have avoided some of these injuries or was I just the built to be broken.

REBECCA LUCIER: I was very active.

I was a swimmer, I rode my bike, I played sports.

And now I can't do any of those things.

And it took a long time for me to mourn that loss and accept what my new life was, especially at my younger age.

MEG MINDLIN: It was very difficult to experience chronic pain as a child, and I didn't really understand what it was that was going on.

I just knew that I was in pain all the time and that I didn't feel good and nobody would believe me that I didn't feel good.

And it led to a lot of really bad mental health problems because I just wanted the pain to stop.

ALI ROGIN: Some of that is really hard to hear.

You've been speaking to people who suffer every day.

Why is chronic pain so difficult to treat?

PAM BELLUCK, The New York Times: Yeah, those were really moving.

And I've heard, you know, many people expressing similar things.

It can just be really debilitating for people.

It's hard to treat because it has a tremendous amount of variation.

It's very individualized, lots of different causes.

There's not kind of a single point in the brain or even in the body for many people that can actually be treated.

There's no kind of center of pain.

So, you know, a lot of the medications that we have don't work for everybody.

The other methods that we have, like spinal cord stimulators or nerve blocks, they help some people, but they just don't work for everybody.

ALI ROGIN: So you looked at a trial that was done.

It was a very small trial, but potentially groundbreaking.

What did you learn about it?

PAM BELLUCK: Yeah, this was a clinical trial that was looking at an approach called deep brain stimulation.

And what deep brain stimulation is, it involves implanting electrodes in the brain and using those electrodes to deliver pulses of electrical stimulation.

What these researchers that I was following did is they said, you know, let's see if we can try it in a different way.

Usually, deep brain stimulation involves putting the electrodes in one area or maybe two areas in the brain and then turning on the stimulation and just kind of setting it and forgetting it, and so it's on continuously.

But these researchers, their idea was maybe that doesn't work for people with chronic pain because there isn't one or two specific locations in the brain that are going to work for everybody.

And maybe if we have it on all the time, the brain adapts to it, and then it just sort of stops working for people.

So what they did is they spent a lot of time trying to identify in a small number of patients, the specific brain locations that would respond to their pain when their pain was at its worst.

They created these algorithms using AI, and then they implanted the electrodes in those locations.

And so it kind of operated like a thermostat for the brain, where it was responding to the patient's pain signals, giving that burst of stimulation, turning it off, and then the next time they were in pain, it would do the same thing.

ALI ROGIN: What did the experts you spoke to say about the potential for broader application of this particular therapy?

PAM BELLUCK: So I think that's a really, you know, open question.

This technique itself, obviously right now is invasive.

It's expensive.

So in the form that it is in right now, and of course it's not yet approved, it would be hard to scale it up to help a whole lot of people.

But as one of the researchers I talked to said, if you think of this like a pacemaker for the brain, which is what this technology is often referred to, pacemakers for the heart decades ago were also very expensive and invasive and people didn't know how widely they could be used.

So, I think that as we learn more and as the technology becomes more accessible, there is potential for it to be used for more patients.

The other kind of crucial thing, though, is that studies like this, particularly where they're trying to look at individual hallmarks and markers of pain in the brain, they can teach scientists a lot about how pain works and that can lead to other kind of less invasive, less expensive methods of treatment.

You know, part of this is to really help scientists understand this very complex and individualized condition.

ALI ROGIN: Pam Belluck with the New York Times.

Fascinating reporting.

Thank you so much.

PAM BELLUCK: Thank you.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Finally tonight, the lengths and heights one nurse goes for her patients.

Here's John Yang.

JOHN YANG (voice-over): To reach the isolated eastern Uganda mountain communities that need her help, nurse Agnes Namboza scales a treacherous 1,000 foot ladder.

It's too steep for small children, mothers carrying babies and the sick to climb down.

AGNES NAMBOZO, Health Worker: Pregnant mothers, we can -- when we come, we also assess them because the journey is long to the health facilities, the HIV patients, they are those who are bedridden and those with TB.

They are unable to come and pick the drugs at the health facilities.

So sometimes we bring for them the treatment to their homes.

JOHN YANG (voice-over): Her most essential mission is vaccinating children against polio, measles, tetanus and pneumonia as Uganda pushes to reduce the high rate of childhood mortality.

RUTH WANYENZE, Resident of Bulambuli, Uganda: Before she came, we used to walk down there up to Zema.

Sometimes we didn't finish even immunization of our children because the journey is so long.

As she comes, she has helped us so much climbing this area and we are now finishing immunizing our children.

JOHN YANG (voice-over): The Gates Foundation has recognized her work, which doesn't stop for rain.

And now Nambozo's path has gotten tougher.

USAID cuts have eliminated many jobs at her clinic.

As she and those who remain try to take up the slack, avoiding burnout could be as much of a challenge as getting to the isolated communities that need her help.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And that is our broadcast for tonight.

I'm Nick Schifrin.

For all of us at PBS News Weekend, I hope you had a good day.

Have a good night.

We'll see you tomorrow.