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

Hi, I'm Carmel Cremens and Dublin. And I'm Christopher Walgespur in Chicago. It's Friday, September 25th, today. The Supreme Court OKs a Trump voter ID tool just weeks before the midterm elections. US consumer sentiment falls to a four-month low. And in New Zealand, the green energy push divides communities. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. The US 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. Chinese President Xi Jinping has wrapped up his visit with a trip to the US National Archives, where Xi and President Trump appeared to review the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The tour caps a visit that's been strategic in rebuilding the relationship between the US and China, even if deals on trade, AI, and Taiwan remain a work in progress. Our White House reporter Trevor Honeycutt explains. 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 to oppose Taiwan independence. That was a major, major sticking point in previous conversations between these two leaders, and it amps up pressure on President Trump to say something different about Taiwan than he said in the past. There are $14 billion of arms sales that Congress has approved to Taiwan that the President and the White House are holding under review at this time. How the President ends up landing on that issue is one of the major dramas coming out of this meeting. U.S. consumer confidence has fallen to a four-month low. The University of Michigan's sentiment index has dropped to 48.1 in September. That's down more than 10 points from last month. Americans say they're worried about inflation eroding their purchasing power, with expectations that price increases could jump to 4.6 percent over the next year. Consumer sentiment is now 15 percent lower than it was in January before the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran. Turning out to the United Nations, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stage at the General Assembly yesterday. And before he began, he had a message for delegates protesting Israel's war in Gaza. "If there are any other moral cowards who haven't yet left this hall, please do so now." Dozens of delegates had already walked out. With Israeli elections less than five weeks away, the speech played more like a campaign rally. Netanyahu defending Israel's conduct in the war and pushing back against critics. "Israel prevented genocide. And that's exactly what Mr. Mamdani's Hamas buddies would have done to us. Had we not stopped them, they would have killed every last one of us." New York mayors are in Mamdani, hit back, calling Netanyahu's speech "baseless lies" and saying he's wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. Outside the UN, protesters demanding the U.S. stop arming Israel were detained, among them actress Susan Sarandon. Earlier in the day, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the General Assembly by video. His delegation barred from attending in person. He reaffirmed plans for Palestinian legislative elections on November 28th. They will be the first parliamentary vote held by Palestinians in two decades. Signs of cautious diplomacy in New York, as sources say U.S. and Iranian negotiators are exploring a phased deal, Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and Washington to lift its economic blockade. But sources say neither side wants to be the first to surrender its leverage. And on the ground, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan are holding an urgent meeting under a joint defense pact. After the Iran-backed Houthis, fired dozens of missiles and drones at Saudi. The Kingdom's top religious authority telling soldiers to be ready to die fighting the Houthis. Now to the war in Ukraine. Berkiv has sent two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea. A transfer that Seoul says should have been kept private. These guys are not easy to capture alive. One of them went here, realized he was going to be taken prisoner, tried to kill himself. President Vladimir Zelensky speaking about the transfer to the UN General Assembly earlier this week. The two North Koreans were captured in Russia's Kursk region in January last year, and they're the first to be captured alive since North Korea joined the Russia-Ukrain more in 2024. At the time, Zelensky said he would hand them over to Kim Jong-un in exchange for Ukrainians held captive in Russia. But human rights groups urged him to repatriate them to South Korea because of the risk of the punishments they'd face. South Korean news agency Jan Hap reported that the soldiers arrived in the country several days ago. The foreign ministry says it won't confirm citing safety concerns for the soldiers and their families. "Pop Leo opening a four-day trip to France with a warning that artificial intelligence could create a "paradise of machines" that takes control of the earth. The Pope has been sounding the alarm about AI since the start of his papacy last year. Leo will visit three cities in France hoping to repair the church's standing after abuse scandals sparked nationwide shock in 2021. On Friday, he also led a prayer service at Notre Dame, the first visit by a Pope since a devastating fire damaged the legendary cathedral back in 2019." And finally today, we take you to New Zealand where a clash is happening between those who believe we must offset our carbon footprint and the farmers who say their livelihoods are being torn apart. Correspondent Lucy Kramer traveled to the tiny town of Pangaroa at the heat of the debate. "Pongaroa is pretty small. The actual town's got a population of 90 people. There is a sort of general store that's got a little cafe, but there is a place, a farm supplier store that seems to sell pretty much everything." This was, until recently, what New Zealand calls sheep and beef country, rolling hills and lucrative farms. But now, just outside of town, the landscape is vastly different, pine trees as far as the eye can see. The result of the government's effort to reduce greenhouse gases. "So, under New Zealand's emissions trading scheme, you can earn credits by, there's a tree grows, it absorbs carbon, and so it earns a credit. And so you earn money." Sounds great, right? But as Lucy and the team met with sheep sheers and took off-road vehicles to speak to farmers on their land, she found that not everyone is enthusiastic. The first thing people talk about is the kind of concern around by our rest. And lots of these areas, it's one road and one road out. They're talking about the growing number of goats and pegs that are popping up on farmland. And then they're just talking about the general kind of isolation that comes with being the only farm left on a road. The industry body for farmers argues efforts are underway to reduce the emissions made by sheep and cattle, including through genetic engineering. And farmers like Fiona Ramston say they're only against blanket planting of entire farms, not trees in general. New Zealand and used to come because New Zealand is cheap and be farming as well as dairy farming is the big pain in the country and with all those pine trees there's nothing going to be left. 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