NPR News Now - NPR News: 09-24-2026 3AM EDT

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

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Live from NPR news, I'm Gail Snyder. President Trump welcomes Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the White House today with a military flyover and fanfare from the U.S. Marine ban. It's the first Chinese state visit to the U.S. in more than a decade, as NPR's Emily Fang report. Trump and Xi will hold bilateral meetings on tariffs and the war on Iran. The two countries are trying to maintain what China calls strategic stability, a day-ton and the relationship. And just before the meetings this week, the U.S. announced two months. month extension of a trade truce that lets it access Chinese-made rare earth products. But other sources of tension remain, including new Chinese actions designed to block U.S. sanctions and recent U.S. legal actions against importing and selling Chinese drones and Internet routers. Emily Fang and Peer News, Washington. Federal judges temporarily block the White House from enforcing its ban on three media outlets.

The ruling temporarily restores White House access to CNN, MS Now, and Politico. The ruling released overnight after Wednesday's court hearing. Australia's Prime Minister says an open AI agent hacked into a government health portal in June in what could be the first known instance of an AI agent breaching a government website. The incident comes as world leaders and AI bosses call for regulation to control the industry due to safety concerns. Adam Hancock is in Sydney and sent this report. Anthony Albanesey said an open AI agent gained unauthorized access to a portal containing non-public data from Australia's universal health scheme, Medicare.

The tech firm has confirmed the hack, revealing that it occurred in June when the AI agent was researching health statistics. They added that the breach was discovered during a review of, quote, misaligned model activity. Albanese has called the hack unacceptable and expressed his concerns to OpenAI boss, Sam Altman. Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said the impact of the breach was minor. For NPR news, I'm Adam Hancock. Open AI Sam Malmant among the tech leaders who are at the United Nations Wednesday, urging the UN to set controls over their technology. But while leading tech executives have been calling for a pause in AI development, smaller labs are pushing back the fear that a slowdown will lock in the dominance of the bigger players.

Here's MPIR's Bobby Allen. Anthropics Dario Amadee, OpenAI, Sam Altman, SpaceX AI, Zelan Musk cannot agree on much. But they all favor pacing AI development. with fears mounting about artificial intelligence escaping human control. Some of the loudest critics have been middle of the PAC AI companies like perplexity, cohere, and mistrawl. In statements to NPR, those companies say a slowdown now would cement the advantages of the biggest labs.

Some even say small AI companies might be forced to shut down. The slowdown calls come as Anthropic and Open AI race towards initial public offerings, as each company's rampant spending on computing power puts pressure on their balance sheets. We should note Anthropic is a financial support. of NPR. This is NPR. Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, told the UN that Russia's war will soon spread to other parts of Europe and called on allies to force the Kremlin to end the war before another brutal winner. Here's NPR's Joanna Kikisis reporting. Zelenskyi said that more than 248,000

Russian soldiers had been killed or wounded in Ukraine over the last eight months. We have an archive of drone videos, videos showing thousands and thousands of Russians losing their lives in kill zones. Zelensky also detailed how Russia's war is hurting the world. He talked about grain shortages, rising fuel prices, and the race to develop even more lethal drone warfare. As early as next year, there is already a real possibility that AI, not only people, will begin to decide what happens on the battlefield. We need peace, he said, before we reach that point. Joanna Kisasas and PR News cave.

The FBI's jobs portal remains inaccessible amid an investigation into a hacking group's claims that it breached the Bureau's computer system and stole data on thousands of current and former FBI employees and job applicants. The group's claims have not been verified. The FBI says it is aware of the claims, but that the point of breach has yet to be determined.

major financial markets in Asia, mostly lower in Thursday trading, while Japan's benchmark decay closed up 1%. Stocks in Sydney, Hong Kong, and Shanghai declined amid pressure from the bond market. This is NPR News.