SCOTUS voter ID ruling, Xi wraps DC visit, New Zealand's farmers (Update)

Reuters World News

This episode of Reuters World News covers significant global shifts, including a US Supreme Court ruling on voter ID databases and the concl

Key takeaways

• The US Supreme Court lifted a block on using an expanded immigration database to verify voter eligibility for midterms.
• US-China relations saw a two-month trade truce extension, though tensions remain over AI and Taiwan.

Main topics

• SCOTUS Voter ID Ruling
• US-China Diplomatic Relations

Notable quotes

If there are and any other moral cowards who haven't yet left this hall, please do so now.

Conclusion

The episode provides a comprehensive overview of how geopolitical deci

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hi, I'm Carmel Crimmins in Dublin. And Speaker 2 (0:02) I'm Christopher Waljasper in Chicago. It's Friday, September 25th. Today, the Supreme Court okays a Trump voter ID tool just weeks before the midterm elections. U.S. consumer sentiment falls to a four-month low. Speaker 1 (0:20) And in New Zealand, the green energy push divides communities. Speaker 1 (0:26) This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, 7 days a week. Speaker 2 (0:42) The U.S. Supreme Court has revived the Trump administration's use of an expanded immigration database to check voter eligibility. The court's conservative majority has voted to lift a lower court order that blocked states from using the system ahead of November's midterm elections. The database was redesigned to allow bulk searches using social security numbers. Several Republican-led states have already used it to flag and remove voters, but advocacy groups say the system is riddled with errors, and critics warn it could disenfranchise eligible voters. Some states have reported that a quarter or more of the non-citizen matches involved people who'd already proven their citizenship. Speaker 2 (1:32) Chinese President Xi Jinping has wrapped up his visit with a trip to the U.S. National Archives, where Xi and President Trump appeared to review the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The tour caps a visit that's been strategic in rebuilding the relationship between the U.S. and China, even if deals on trade, AI, and Taiwan remain a work in progress. Our White House reporter Trevor Honeycutt explains. Speaker 3 (2:04) On trade, the two sides agreed to a two-month extension of their truce. That means that tariffs will not be going back up to the triple-digit levels that they hovered at in 2025. That's good news for the Chinese economy, which has been able to offset weak domestic demand with strong exports to countries including the United States. On AI, President Xi struck a cautious tone. He talked about the need to make sure that AI stays in human control, and he talked about the need to make sure that it's responsibly developed for the good of society. Trump was much more optimistic about AI, and he talked about how he wanted no change to what he called superintelligence. The leaders also talked about Taiwan. President Xi pressed President Trump in their private meeting.