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From The New York Times, it’s “The Headlines.” I’m Tracy Mumford. Today’s Thursday, May 14. Here’s what we’re covering.

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In Beijing this morning, President Trump was welcomed with a 21-gun salute as Chinese President Xi Jinping greeted him for the start of their high-stakes summit.

The meeting marks the first visit to China by a US president in nearly a decade. And in their opening remarks, both leaders stressed the importance of US-China cooperation.

But hanging over that relationship and this week’s talks are longstanding clashes over trade and Taiwan as well as a new source of tension, the war in Iran. Iran is China’s closest partner in the Middle East, and the country buys about 80 percent of Iran’s oil exports. Since the beginning of the war, China has given Iran intelligence, plus access to a spy satellite that has tracked the positions of US forces in the region.

And just as Trump was flying to China, “The Times” learned from US officials that Chinese companies have been discussing selling weapons to Iran. No Chinese weapons seem to have been used on the battlefield yet, but the American officials say the plan would be to send the weapons via third-party countries to hide the fact that they’re coming from China. Whether President Trump will bring any of that up on this visit, though, and pressure China over its support for Iran is an open question. He seems eager to keep the US relationship with China stable rather than stirring up conflict.

And, notably, the war in Iran has actually tied the US more closely to China. That’s because China dominates global production of rare earth minerals, which are crucial components of US weapons, from cruise missiles to fighter jets. One former US trade official told “The Times,” quote, “Every missile fired at Iran makes us that much more dependent in the near term on China.”

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Meanwhile —

As the war continues, oil companies have been posting spectacular profits.

In recent weeks, they’ve been sharing huge earnings with, the conflict rocking the global energy market.

“The Times” global econ correspondent, Patty Cohen, has been digging into what is behind those sky-high profits.

Patty says the new profits have reignited a debate in Europe over whether to impose a temporary windfall tax on oil and gas companies’ sudden jackpot. That money could then be used to help slash consumers’ energy bills across the continent. Most EU countries did that in 2022 after Russia’s fullscale invasion of Ukraine drove oil prices way up. But it was a challenge to actually collect the money. One French economist told “The Times” that in response, oil giants did things like shift their profits to offshore tax havens.

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On Capitol Hill yesterday, the Senate voted in Kevin Warsh as the new chair of the Federal Reserve. But even as he steps into the new job, there are major concerns in Washington over whether he will maintain the Fed’s tradition of independence from the White House.

Warsh’s confirmation hearings were filled with questions about whether he plans to do the bidding of President Trump, who handpicked him for the job. Trump has spent the last year and a half relentlessly attacking the outgoing Fed chair, Jerome Powell, for not lowering interest rates like he wanted him to. That threatened to break the longstanding norm of letting the central bank make its own decisions about what’s best for the economy.

My colleague Colby Smith, who covers the Fed, says Warsh has repeatedly denied that he’ll follow Trump’s lead on interest rates, but he has said he wants to shake things up. Colby has more about his plans for what he’s called regime change on today’s episode of “The Daily.”

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In South Carolina, the state’s top court overturned the murder convictions against Alex Murdaugh yesterday, a surprise reversal in one of the most high-profile homicide cases in the country. Murdaugh was convicted in 2023 of killing his wife and his 22-year-old son. Their deaths on the family’s rural hunting estate sparked intense fascination.

And the case set off a wave of true crime documentaries and podcasts. People were fascinated by the once-prominent family, now engulfed in accusations of embezzlement and murder.

At his trial, a jury convicted Murdaugh in less than three hours after being shown a video of him at the crime scene, where he had originally denied being. Now, though, the state supreme court has ruled that a court clerk committed what it called “shocking jury interference.” Some jurors said that she would talk to them about Alex Murdaugh’s testimony, including saying that they should not be fooled by him. The clerk has also pleaded guilty to using her government job for personal gain by promoting a book she wrote about the case.

The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office will now retry Murdaugh for the killings, which he denies committing. He will remain behind bars, though, because he’s also been sentenced to decades in prison for stealing millions of dollars from his law firm and former clients.

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And finally —

Jason Collins, the first active NBA player to come out as gay, died this week at 47 years old. His family said the cause was an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Back in 2013, Collins sparked a national conversation after he wrote an essay for Sports Illustrated declaring, quote, “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m Black. And I’m gay.” President Obama called him up. He was a guest at the next State of the Union. And he went on “Oprah.”

It was a time when the gay rights movement was making significant strides, but gay marriage was not yet legal nationwide. And not all the reaction was positive. Some wondered if Collins’s announcement would end his career. At that point, he’d played for multiple NBA teams for more than a decade and was a free agent. The Brooklyn Nets ultimately signed him, and he played for a few more months before retiring.

While his groundbreaking announcement was celebrated as a major moment for professional sports, very few men have followed in Collins’s path. Other male athletes have come out only after their careers are over. And today, there are no openly gay active players in men’s pro basketball, football, hockey, or baseball.

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Those are “The Headlines.” I’m Tracy Mumford. We’ll be back tomorrow with the latest and the Friday news quiz.