Biden's "respectful" 3.5-hour virtual summit with China's Xi focuses on "managing strategic risks" like Taiwan
CBSN
President Biden "welcomed the opportunity to speak candidly and straightforwardly" with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday night, when the two leaders held a virtual summit. The White House said the men sat down for about 3.5 hours for a video call that was divided into two sections, with a break in the middle.
According to the White House readout on the summit, Mr. Biden "underscored the importance of managing strategic risks" with China, and "he noted the need for common-sense guardrails to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict and to keep lines of communication open."
A senior administration official told reporters after the presidents' meeting that while there had been no major breakthroughs, it was a "substantial back and forth" that was "respectful and straightforward and it was open."
President Joe Biden said France was America's "first friend" at its founding and is one of its closest allies more than two centuries later as he was honored with a state visit Saturday by French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at showing off their partnership on global security issues and easing past trade tensions.
The Consumer Federal Protection Bureau last week launched an inquiry into what the agency is calling "junk fees in mortgage closing costs." These additional fees, involving home appraisal, title insurance and other services, have spiked in recent years and can add thousands of dollars to the final cost of buying a home.
Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic "Earthrise" photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.