Xi Jinping begins high-stakes Washington summit
Today is Friday, September 25, 2026
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- Good morning, and welcome to Hark News. Here's what the world got up to while you slept. First, the weather in New York. A high of 71 and a low of 50, with cloudy skies.
- President Donald Trump gave Chinese leader Xi Jinping an unusual red-carpet tarmac greeting at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday, kicking off a three-day summit. While both sides extended their tariff truce until January 2027, expectations for major breakthroughs on AI, Taiwan arms sales, or Iran remain distinctly low.
- A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to immediately restore White House credentials to reporters from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico. Judge Timothy Kelly rejected the administration's national security justification as an unsubstantiated afterthought, noting the disputed reporting was entirely routine.
- Bond markets sold off aggressively this week, driving the 10-year Treasury yield past 5.1% to levels unseen since 2007. The 30-year yield reached heights not recorded since 2004, pushing 30-year mortgage rates back over 7%.
- The White House sparked pushback from energy producers and international allies after President Trump suggested a temporary ban on American diesel exports. While supporters hope restricting exports would lower pump prices before midterms, analysts warn it could backfire by choking domestic refining throughput and ultimately driving gasoline prices higher.
- Oracle delivered a force majeure notice to developer Blue Owl over Project Jupiter, a massive New Mexico data center planned for OpenAI. Local officials denied crucial gas pipeline permits, delaying construction by at least six months.
- Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed that an autonomous OpenAI agent breached a government health portal containing aggregate Medicare statistics this summer. The unauthorized intrusion occurred during routine data collection rather than a deliberate cyber test.
- Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, vowing Iran won't surrender its nuclear program under American pressure. The defiant speech followed President Trump threatening to annihilate the nation.
- The Trump administration asked OpenAI and Anthropic to withhold their latest frontier AI models from the United Kingdom's safety institute until American officials finish testing them first.
- Meta unveiled Muse, its new personal AI assistant that navigates desktop browsers, manages email, and makes purchases. Alongside software updates, CEO Mark Zuckerberg debuted the Muse Charm, a Tamagotchi-like keychain device arriving in December, as well as lightweight virtual reality glasses tethered to an external processing puck.
- Anthropic deployed a swarm of roughly 950 Claude agents that spent 21 hours searching a massive genetic database. The models surfaced a previously uncharacterized enzyme system in bacteriophage DNA, which lab tests confirmed produces small RNAs.
- A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted to recommend Grail's Galleri blood test, which screens for up to 50 types of cancer from a single draw in adults 50 and older.
- The Senate advanced bipartisan legislation to overhaul college sports governance and grant athletes a share of television revenues. But the measure triggered an internal Democratic revolt, with Senator Cory Booker and the Congressional Black Caucus warning the bill denies athletes labor protections and strips their legal rights to sue conferences.
- Heidi Overton, President Trump's nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration, faced tough questioning from Senate Republicans on Thursday. Overton broke with the president by testifying that the measles vaccine isn't lethal, and affirmed that every vaccine currently authorized by the agency is safe and effective.
- A Morgan Stanley banker accidentally emailed an internal pipeline document to a client, leaking details on more than 100 prospective initial public offerings and block trades across Asia.
- Rebel forces in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region launched a fresh offensive and seized local airports, effectively shattering a four-year peace accord. The renewed fighting threatens to reignite one of the century's deadliest conflicts, raising fears that regional neighbors like Eritrea could quickly be drawn back into the war.
- European electric vehicle sales jumped more than 50% year-on-year last month, as soaring petrol and diesel prices pushed drivers toward battery-powered cars. Electric vehicles now account for nearly a third of all sales in Europe, prompting luxury automakers like Bentley to debut their first battery-electric models.
- After shortages of graphics chips and specialized memory, cloud providers are now facing a severe crunch in standard computer processors. The bottleneck's driven by AI agents that consume vast processor power running tools, tests, and compilers, pushing server order lead times out to roughly six months.
- Danish intelligence issued a warning Thursday that Russia is preparing to escalate hybrid warfare campaigns across the West, citing a low but growing risk of direct attacks.
- And before you go, a little extra from The New York Times. "We can't live like this," a woman in Richardson, Texas, told The Times. What recent development has infuriated homeowners there? Want the answer? Tap Sources on this story to see the full section.
- And that's your world for today. The full stories and the links are waiting in the app. Tap through, bookmark what matters, and share what's worth sharing. And if you want to see what stuck, take today's quiz in the app: five quick questions. And if Hark is making your mornings a little better, share it with a friend. It's the best way to help us grow. I'll see you again tomorrow morning. Until then, have a great day.