Five developments lead Thursday’s briefing: President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping begin high-stakes talks in Washington after extending a trade truce; the Trump administration is removing hundreds of thousands of Affordable Care Act enrollments; Maryland has ordered greater scrutiny of proposed data centers; Nepal is seeking more international help for flood recovery as another period of heavy rain begins; and Anthropic has released Claude Opus 5.5.
In This Roundup
- Trump and Xi Begin Washington Summit After U.S.-China Trade Truce Extended
- Trump Administration Removes ACA Coverage Tied to 760,000 People
- Maryland Orders Additional Scrutiny of New Data Centers
- Nepal Seeks More International Support as Heavy-Rain Threat Begins
- Anthropic Releases Claude Opus 5.5 With Lower Operating Costs
1 Trump and Xi Begin Washington Summit After U.S.-China Trade Truce Extended
President Donald Trump is hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House on Thursday for talks expected to focus on trade, artificial intelligence, advanced chips, Taiwan and Iran. Xi arrived Wednesday evening at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where Trump personally greeted him.
Ahead of the summit, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States and China had agreed to extend their trade truce until January. The arrangement continues scaled-back tariffs and a pause on additional trade restrictions while negotiations continue.
Reuters reports that neither side is expected to announce a sweeping settlement, with the summit instead focused on stabilizing relations between the world’s two largest economies.
Neither side is expected to announce a sweeping settlement, with the summit instead focused on stabilizing relations between the world’s two largest economies. — Reuters
2 Trump Administration Removes ACA Coverage Tied to 760,000 People
The Trump administration says federal officials have canceled Affordable Care Act marketplace policies affecting about 760,000 people, citing suspected fraudulent enrollments and cases in which citizenship or immigration status could not be verified.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said 315,000 policies were canceled in August. The administration also barred 569 brokers and temporarily froze new broker registrations through February 2027. Officials estimate the canceled subsidies will save about $2.2 billion, according to the Associated Press.
The National Association of Benefits and Insurance Professionals has criticized the broad broker moratorium and called for more targeted enforcement.
3 Maryland Orders Additional Scrutiny of New Data Centers
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed an executive order Wednesday creating a state task force to review proposed data-center projects and provide guidance to local governments considering them, Maryland Matters reports. Local governments will retain final authority over individual projects.
Moore also said he plans to ask lawmakers to repeal Maryland’s sales-tax exemption for data centers. The move comes as several Maryland counties have temporarily paused new projects and one county has banned them. The debate centers on electricity demand, environmental effects, infrastructure and the rapid expansion of computing capacity needed for AI.
The Maryland action follows neighboring Virginia, where Gov. Abigail Spanberger recently introduced a Data Center Accountability Framework and urged Congress to establish national AI safeguards.
4 Nepal Seeks More International Support as Heavy-Rain Threat Begins
Nepal Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal is using meetings on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York to seek additional international assistance for recovery and reconstruction after the devastating Bhotekoshi disaster, according to the Kathmandu Post. He is also calling for more financing for climate-resilient infrastructure and disaster preparedness in vulnerable countries.
The appeal comes as Nepal enters another potentially dangerous weather period. The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology has warned that systems associated with the Bay of Bengal could produce heavy to very heavy rainfall from Sept. 24 through Sept. 28, particularly across western and central Nepal. Additional rain could complicate ongoing recovery operations in areas devastated by the Aug. 26 floods.
5 Anthropic Releases Claude Opus 5.5 With Lower Operating Costs
Anthropic has released Claude Opus 5.5, its latest high-end artificial-intelligence model, saying it delivers performance comparable with its more expensive frontier systems while reducing operating costs.
According to Reuters, Opus 5.5 costs $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens. Anthropic said the model underwent outside safety testing and incorporates safeguards previously reserved for its most capable systems. The company says Opus 5.5 performed strongly on software-development benchmarks and was substantially less likely than earlier models to breach containment barriers during internal safety evaluations.
The model is being made available through major cloud platforms, with additional Claude Sonnet and Haiku models planned.
Editor’s Note: What to watch today: the outcome of the Trump-Xi White House talks and any announcements on trade, AI or advanced chips; challenges stemming from the ACA cancellations; implementation of Maryland’s new data-center review process; rainfall and flood warnings across Nepal; and independent evaluations of Claude Opus 5.5.
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