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Trump and Xi plan to meet after “very productive” phone call. Following months of US-China sparring over trade and technology, President Trump and China’s Xi Jinping spoke on the phone yesterday for the second time since Trump’s current term began. Trump said that they made progress on “trade, fentanyl, the need to bring the war between Russia and Ukraine to an end, and the approval of the TikTok deal.” But it appeared the US and China are still hashing out the details of a framework agreement reached earlier this week for American investors to control TikTok in the US. Meanwhile, the Chinese government said that Xi asked Trump to refrain from imposing trade restrictions. With trade negotiations expected to continue, the leaders now plan to talk face-to-face at a regional summit in South Korea next month, and Trump said that he will go to China early next year.
Senate fails to pass government shutdown-averting bill. Majority-holding House Republicans passed a bill yesterday to fund the government through much of November, but it failed to clear the Senate, where it needed 60 votes. The government’s chances of keeping the lights on are now slim, since Congress is in recess until after Oct. 1, when its current funding runs out. Democrats refused to support the GOP plan to keep federal funding at roughly the same level with an emergency $88 million to bolster security for government officials in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination. The party put forward its own bill—which also failed—to fund the government until Oct. 31, but with $326 million in security funds, an extension of Obamacare subsidies scheduled to expire at the end of the year, and a rollback of Medicaid cuts enacted by the recent Republican-backed budget.
CDC panel votes to end universal Covid vaccine recommendation. A panel of health advisors picked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voted yesterday to drop the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance that everyone older than 6 months get a Covid shot. If the CDC approves the new guidance, Americans will be advised to consult with a doctor before vaccination. But many health experts worry that ending the blanket recommendations could make it more difficult to access Covid vaccines for those who want them. The panel also voted to stop recommending a combined measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella vaccine for young children in favor of administering the varicella (or chickenpox) vaccine separately, and it put off a decision on whether to delay the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns.—SK
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