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Live from NPR News. In Washington, I'm Jeanine Herbst. President Trump says he made progress in talks with Russian President Putin about the war in Ukraine, but there was no announcement of a ceasefire or any promise by Putin to stop bombarding Ukraine, as NPR's Michelle Kellerman reports.
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In a brief statement, the two men praised each other and called their meeting in Alaska productive. Putin suggested that there was some kind of an agreement, though he's laying the groundwork to blame Ukraine and Europe if there's no peace deal. He spoke through an interpreter.
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We expect that Kyiv and European capitals will perceive that constructively and that they.
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Won'T throw a wrench in the works and won't torpedo what he described as nascent progress. Putin did not mention any ceasefire, nor did he address Russia's role in the war, describing the conflict as a tragedy. Trump says he has a fantastic relationship with Putin, though they've not yet made a deal. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, Washington.
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Recent executive order signed by President Trump paves the way for retirement accounts to start, including assets like crypto, real estate and private equity. NPR's Laurel Wamsley reports that could mean new options for Americans 401 s. Most.
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People'S retirement accounts are full of stock and bond funds, but this executive order directs several federal agencies to start clearing the path for assets like crypto and private equity in accounts like 401s. There's no law banning these more exotic investments in a retirement account, but federal law requires that employers be prudent in what they offer in employees retirement plans or they risk being sued by their workers. Experts say these new kinds of assets may not be well suited to everyone's 401. Private equity, for example, often charges very high fees and can tie up money for a decade, and crypto has high volatility and is loosely regulated. Laurel Wamsley, NPR News.
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After months of deliberation, Baltimore has decided to accept $152 million in damages and abatement from opioid distributors McKesson and Syncora. Scott Masoni with member station WYPR has more.
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The final award is a historic win that brings Baltimore's total winnings from opioid companies to nearly $580 million. The city sued opioid companies independently. Rather than taking the global settlement to lucrative results, the city won its case against McKess Syncora in November, and the jury awarded the city about $266 million in damages. The city also submitted a more than $5 billion abatement plan to reduce overdoses in the near future, but the judge in the case reduced Those amounts to $52 million in damages and only allowed for $100 million for abatement. Baltimore is still set to receive more settlement funding from Johnson and Johnson and the Sackler family. For NPR News, I'm Scott Moscione in Baltimore.
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Wall street ended the day in mixed territory. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. New research shows that implanted brain computer interfaces can listen to a person's inner voice. NPR's John Hamilton has more on a study in the journal Cell.
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The study involved four people with paralysis who already used a surgically implanted brain computer interface to communicate. The devices were designed to recognize brain signals that appear when the user attempts to speak a word. But Aaron Kunz of Stanford University says it turned out the devices could also decode words that a person simply imagined.
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We were able to get up to.
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A 74% accuracy decoding sentences from 125,000 word vocabulary.
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The finding could lead to interfaces that help paralyzed people communicate more quickly and with less effort. But the result also shows that technology to decode signals in the brain has the potential to threaten a person's privacy. John Hamilton, NPR News.
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New research shows early human ancestors during the Stone Age were more picky about the rocks they used for making tools than previously thought. The study, published today in science advances, shows 2.6 million years ago, early humans developed a method to chip sharp flakes from rocks to use as blades for butchering meat. At an archaeological site in Kenya, researchers found durable blades made of quartzite and then trace the origins the original rock material, to locations several miles away. It suggests early humans had a mental map of where suitable raw materials were located and planned ahead to use them. I'm Jeanine Herbst, NPR News, in Washington.