Index: src/wp-includes/widgets.php
===================================================================
--- src/wp-includes/widgets.php	(revision 60000)
+++ src/wp-includes/widgets.php	(working copy)
@@
 function wp_widget_rss_output( $rss, $args = array() ) {
 	if ( is_string( $rss ) ) {
 		$rss = fetch_feed( $rss );
 	} elseif ( is_array( $rss ) && isset( $rss['url'] ) ) {
 		$args = $rss;
 		$rss  = fetch_feed( $rss['url'] );
 	}
 
 	if ( is_wp_error( $rss ) ) {
 		if ( is_admin() || current_user_can( 'manage_options' ) ) {
 			echo '<p>' . sprintf( __( '<strong>RSS Error</strong>: %s' ), $rss->get_error_message() ) . '</p>';
 		}
 		return;
 	}
 
 	$default_args = array(
 		'show_author'  => 0,
 		'show_date'    => 0,
 		'show_summary' => 0,
 	);
 	$args = wp_parse_args( $args, $default_args );
 
 	$items = (int) $args['items'];
 	if ( $items < 1 || 20 < $items ) {
 		$items = 10;
 	}
 
 	$rss_items = $rss->get_items( 0, $items );
 
 	if ( empty( $rss_items ) ) {
 		echo '<ul><li>' . __( 'An error has occurred, which probably means the feed is down. Try again later.' ) . '</li></ul>';
 		$rss->__destruct();
 		unset( $rss );
 		return;
 	}
 
 	echo '<ul>';
 	foreach ( $rss_items as $item ) {
-		$title = esc_html( trim( strip_tags( $item->get_title() ) ) );
+		// Decode HTML entities first to avoid showing escaped HTML tags like &lt;em&gt;.
+		$title = esc_html( trim( strip_tags( html_entity_decode( $item->get_title() ) ) ) );
 
 		if ( '' === $title ) {
 			$title = __( 'Untitled' );
 		}
 
 		$link = $item->get_link();
 		while ( stristr( $link, 'http' ) !== $link ) {
 			$link = substr( $link, 1 );
 		}
 		$link = esc_url( strip_tags( $link ) );
 
 		$desc = $item->get_description();
 		$desc = html_entity_decode( $desc, ENT_QUOTES, get_option( 'blog_charset' ) );
 		$desc = esc_attr( wp_trim_words( $desc, 55, ' [&hellip;]' ) );
 		$summary = '';
 		if ( $args['show_summary'] ) {
 			$summary = $desc;
 		}