"Li" from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh.
President Trump has arrived in Beijing for a two-day bilateral meeting with Chinese leader,
Xi Jinping.
“NPR's Jennifer Pack reports it is the first time a U.S. President has visited in nearly”
a decade. Trump was the last U.S. President to visit since 2017, and after all of the ceremonial pump, Trump still launched a trade war with China. He imposed even more tariffs in sanctions last year when he returned to office. Chinese officials retaliated, and the two sides reached a sort of pause last fall.
But it's fragile. The two leaders are keen to stabilize the relationship. Chinese media showed roads leading out of the Beijing capital airport were lined with U.S. and Chinese flags side by side to greet Trump's arrival. An editorial in the state-owned people's daily said, China U.S. relations cannot go back
to what it was in the past. But there could be a better future. Jennifer Pack and PR News Beijing. NPR's Kirk Sigler reports the state visit has major implications for American farmers
“who have been severely affected by inflation and flat commodity prices.”
Joe Vacklavik is a former Chicago trade board analyst who hosts the closely followed podcast standard grain. He's been skeptical that a solid deal will come out of this summit.
It's China really going to buy 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans.
Next year, despite the fact that Brazil's got more than ever to export Chinese demand. Maybe falling off a little bit. I don't know. It's a hot topic and a good question. Hope that any trade deal with China includes a firm commitment to buy a lot of soybeans.
That's in PR's Kirk Sigler reporting as redistricting battles lean more heavily in favor of Republicans vying to win seats in this year's midterms and keep control of Congress. South Carolina's gone the other way. Gavin Jackson with South Carolina Public Radio says a handful of Republicans in the state Senate joined their Democratic colleagues to push back on President Trump's nationwide
“call to Republicans to redraw legislative maps.”
The Senate defeated a last minute redistricting push in the state as a legislative session years. And five South Carolina Republican senators joined Democrats in killing a bill that would allow lawmakers to take up congressional redistricting after session ends. The five Republicans included a majority leader Shane Massey, who fielded several calls from
President Trump to consider drafting a new map to eliminate Congressman Jim Clyburn and seat the loan Democrat district of the state's seven. Massey said the map hastily crafted without public input or thorough vetting could actually make several districts more competitive for Democrats, even if the House passes a new map it is considering time is not on its side in the Senate for MPR news.
I'm Gavin Jackson and Columbia South Carolina. The South Carolina Supreme Court has granted a new trial for Alec Murdoch, the disgraced former attorney, who has convicted three years ago of murdering his wife and son. Murdoch's defense team argues that a court clerk tampered with the jury in the original murder trial.
This is NPR news. Gunshots were heard Wednesday at the Philippine Senate where authorities had been trying to arrest a sitting senator, wanted by the international criminal court over alleged crimes against humanity during the administration, a former president Rodrigo Duterte.
It was unclear who fired first, this week's judicial police and the Philippines had been
trying to detain Senator Ronald Delorosa, who been sheltered by allies after fleeing officers inside the Senate and taking refuge in his office. The ICC issued a warrant for his arrest. Delorosa is a former national police chief under Duterte. The Eurovision Song Contest Launch today in Vienna, Austria, NPR's Cleveland reports on
the geopolitical riffs that are casting a shadow over the annual extravaganza. The 2026 Eurovision entry from Israel performed by Noan Betan, his sung in three languages English, Hebrew and French, to both reflect the artist's multilingual background and potentially increase the song's international appeal. But five countries, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain pulled out after
organizers decided to allow Israel to compete. Pro-Palestinian protests at the last two contests called for Israel to be disbarred over the war in Gaza, as well as allegations that attempted to manipulate voting to favour its entry. The organizers are expecting both anti and pro-Israel demonstrations in the run-up to the
finals on Saturday, Chloe Valtman and Pianus. The Eurovision Song Contest is now in its 70th year. This is NPR News. But now we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known.
I'm David Remnick and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney and so many more. That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.
