Live from NPR news in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton.
President Trump and China's leaders, Xi Jinping are about to begin talks in Beijing in
a few hours.
“This is the first U.S. presidential visit to China in more than eight years, and as NPR's”
Emily Fang reports, high stakes issues ranging from trade to technology are on the table. Trump and China's Xi Jinping will need in Beijing's great hall of the people in the city's central Tiananmen Square. And there, Trump says he'll talk about the war with Iran and high energy prices, he's asked for China for help before to unblock the straight-of-war moves.
The two men will also discuss Taiwan, the Democratic Island China wants to take control of, but which the U.S. has historically sold weapons to to defend against China. China's officials have been signaling their desire for a diplomatic data on with the U.S. on trade tariffs, as well as willingness to help pressure Iran toward the ceasefire.
Earlier on Wednesday, Beijing welcomed Trump to China with a grand red carpet welcome.
Emily Fang and Pernus. The House oversight committee is investigating prediction markets and threatening subpoenas. The move comes as reports of military and political insider trading mount in Washington. NPR's Luke Garrett reports.
“Oversight committee chairman, James Comer, says he's requesting data from prediction markets.”
Those are exchanges that host bets on future events. Here's Comer, a Kentucky Republican on Fox Business. Well, we're starting to request information. That's the process. That's how it begins.
We'll request information. And if we have trouble getting it, then a subpoena will follow. The probe comes after representative Chris Papas, a Democrat from New Hampshire, called on Comer to investigate suspicious bets on military actions and political outcomes. Billions of dollars are wagered each week on prediction markets like Polymarket and Calshy,
where users can bet and win money on everything from sports, culture to even elections. Comer did not specify which prediction markets are being investigated. Luke Garrett and PR news, Washington. The South Carolina Supreme Court has overturned a case that captivated the nation former
“high-profile attorney Alex Murdoch will get a new trial after being convicted in 2023 for”
the murders of his wife and son, South Carolina Public Radio's Victoria Hanson reports. The ruling was unanimous. The justice is said Murdoch was denied a fair trial. Specifically, they said, the Collagen County Clerk of Court attacked Murdoch's credibility by telling jurors to watch him closely as he testified.
The justice is also said the presiding judge should not have admitted evidence of Murdoch's financial crimes into the six-week-long trial. The ruling is a win for Murdoch, who has long denied shooting his wife and son in 2021. But the 57-year-old won't be getting another prison. He serving a lengthy sentence for state and federal financial crimes, including stealing
millions from former clients. More MPR news, Auditoria Hanson, in South Carolina. The majority of U.S. stocks fell today following another discouraging update on inflation. This is NPR. Researchers are warning that the U.S. is experiencing a reading recession on slide that predates
the COVID-19 pandemic, a new analysis of state test scores from third to eighth grade
for over 5,000 school districts and 38 states, found that only five states, plus Washington D.C., had meaningful growth in reading test scores from 2022 to 2025. A team of scientists believe they've found evidence of what may have amounted to an ancient root canal in the Andorthals, or Aridanial reports. Researchers unearthed nearly 60,000-year-old Neanderthal tooth, a molar in a Siberian cave.
It had a deep hole on the biting surface. When the team looked more closely, they noticed microscopic radial grooves that they think may have been artificially created by drilling into the tooth to deal with a cavity, perhaps. Rachel Kallisher is a bioarchiologist at UC San Diego who wasn't involved in the research. She's open to the idea that Neanderthal's were capable of treating cavities.
It's certainly believable, but I'm not sure that the evidence that they provide is necessarily the smoking gun. Kallisher agrees the hole was likely produced by a stone tool, but she can't be sure it was done intentionally. When PR news, I'm Aridanial.
The PWHL delivered a double slap shot of expansion news today, announcing it's bringing women's pro-hockey to the distinctly different markets of Las Vegas and Hamilton, Ontario, and growing to 11 teams, there's one more addition still to come to make it an even dozen for a league preparing to double in size since launching in 2024. It's NPR.
Seattle, 1999, teen reporters here are a troubling rumor about a beloved teacher. They reported he later dies. I was one of those students. Now I'm uncovering what really happened, because people said we killed a man. Listen to adults in the room from KU-O-W focus and the NPR network.
