“President Donald Trump has a new prediction for when the Iran war will end and Americans can expect gas prices to come down: immediately after the midterm elections. ‘I think the war is going to end immediately after the election,’ Trump said on Sept. 9, as he prepared to depart Joint Base Andrews for the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas. ‘I think the war will end immediately after the election,’ he repeated. Iran can’t hold out for longer than that, Trump said of the election that’s in 55 days. ‘They’re desperate to try and affect the election, so that we can get a nice group of weak people in there, and leave them alone, and let them have their nuclear weapon,’ Trump said.” [editor’s note: Legally, the war never began and continues to be wholly illegal – TLK] (09/09/26)
“The no-holds-barred fight over congressional maps in Missouri has reached a new level of intensity with the state’s high court opening a contempt probe into Secretary of State Denny Hoskins. The Missouri Supreme Court late Tuesday issued an order asking Hoskins, a Republican, to explain ‘why he should not be held in contempt’ for violating a ruling last week that said the state cannot use a newly drawn GOP map. Despite the ruling, Hoskins continued to push to use the new map. The court also ordered Hoskins to appear in person when the judges hold a hearing in the case Thursday. Hoskins indicated in a post on X that he would not back down. … Should the Missouri Supreme Court ruling remain in effect, a map drawn in 2022, with six Republican-held seats and two Democratic-held seats, would be in place for the general election.” (09/09/26)
“Temporary legal protections for about 200,000 immigrants from El Salvador was in limbo Wednesday as a deadline neared for the Trump administration to decide if they should end, as it has done for hundreds of thousands from Venezuela, Haiti and other countries. The Temporary Protected Status designation expires Wednesday but the statute does not give a specific time for when that happens. If the Department of Homeland Security takes no action, protections are automatically extended for six months. This rare reprieve happened in May, when the protections were automatically extended to about 11,000 Lebanese, allowing them to stay and work in the U.S. for another 180 days. DHS said in a statement Wednesday that it will announce a decision on El Salvador ‘at the appropriate time’ and that protections would remain in place until then.” (09/09/26)
“Bangladesh, which once came close to eliminating measles, is facing its worst outbreak on record, with around 1,000 suspected and confirmed measles-related deaths reported since March, as hospitals struggle with overcrowding, shortages and a continuing influx of sick children. The South Asian country is currently experiencing the biggest measles outbreak in the world, according to a list on the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, recording more than 57,000 cases between January and June. But the numbers may be far higher than that, according to Bangladesh’s Health Ministry. Since the outbreak emerged in March, Bangladesh has recorded more than 166,000 suspected measles cases, including 19,835 laboratory-confirmed infections, according to Health Ministry data.” (09/09/26)
“A senior researcher who leads Anthropic’s alignment efforts said Tuesday that many in the company believed AI could wipe out humanity and warned that the company is not on track to solve the issue of aligning AI’s goals with humanity’s, despite its efforts, after another researcher quit the company, accusing it of not acting responsibly. Evan Hubinger, the Alignment Science Lead at Anthropic, wrote on X that he and his colleagues do ‘earnestly believe AI could kill all humans,’ and he pegged his own estimate at more than 10% in the next decade. … Hubinger’s post responded to an X thread by another Anthropic researcher, Jacob Coxon, who announced he is resigning from the company over AI safety concerns.” (09/09/26)
“The U.N. atomic watchdog’s board on Wednesday reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council for the first time in 20 years, citing it for failure to cooperate in a long-running investigation into uranium traces detected by inspectors at undeclared sites. Western officials suspect that the traces could provide evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until 2003. Iran says that it’s not pursuing nuclear weapons, and that its program is entirely peaceful. Reporting Iran to the Security Council opens the country to possible sanctions and asset freezes, though such punitive measures are unlikely because Iran’s allies Russia and China hold veto power on the panel. Twenty-three countries on the International Atomic Energy Agency ’s 35-member board of governors voted for Wednesday’s resolution at IAEA headquarters in Vienna. ” (09/09/26)
“The EU’s General Court has rejected Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich’s challenge to sanctions imposed on him following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, upholding asset freezes and travel restrictions against the billionaire. The Council of the EU acted within its powers when it extended the measures against the billionaire former owner of Chelsea Football Club in 2022 through September 2025 and March 2026, judges ruled, according to a statement issued by the Court on Wednesday. Abramovich, who holds Russian, Israeli and Portuguese nationality, is the majority shareholder in Evraz, one of Russia’s largest steel and mining groups. He also owns shares in Norilsk Nickel, a major producer of palladium and refined nickel. The EU Court said the bloc’s sanctions criteria were objective, sufficiently precise and proportionate. They target prominent businesspeople operating in Russia, particularly those active in sectors that provide significant revenue to the Russian government.” (09/09/26)
“Americans are more skeptical of government information than they were a few years ago, with majorities now saying they have little or no trust in federal government information about elections and politics, foreign affairs or the environment, a new poll finds. The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USA Facts shows that while mistrust of government information has grown since 2024, it’s also higher than it was at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term, underscoring how his recent attempts to dismantle the federal bureaucracy may have affected public confidence in the executive branch, particularly among Democrats. … About 6 in 10 U.S. adults have low trust in information from the federal government about the environment, foreign affairs, elections and politics, abortion or immigration — saying they trust it ‘only a little’ or ‘not at all.'” (09/09/26)
“Israel opened its first embassy in Slovenia on Wednesday, boosting relations with the small European Union nation even as ties sour with some longtime allies over its policy on illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar travelled to Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital, for the occasion that asserts a shift in Slovenia’s policy toward Israel under the current right-wing Prime Minister Janez Jansa. Saar called the embassy opening a ‘historic day’ after a meeting with his Slovenian counterpart Tone Kajzer. He described Israel as ‘the only democracy in the Middle East and almost the only real and true partner of Europe’, the STA news agency reported. ‘Moreover, we are defending Europe, Europe’s security, directly and indirectly,’ Saar said, adding that ‘Israel is the fortress on the front line for Western civilization’. Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the new embassy building to protest the visit, demanding the embassy’s closure.” (09/09/26)
“Flights from British airports resumed on Wednesday after a major air traffic failure, but questions mounted about the reliability of Britain’s aviation systems and ministers called in the flight control boss to explain the shutdown. The hours-long outage on Tuesday, which resulted in the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights and left hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded, has ramped up pressure on air traffic control provider NATS and its boss Martin Rolfe. Transport minister Heidi Alexander will later on Wednesday hear from Rolfe after she summoned him to explain what happened, amid concerns that the infrastructure and technology are not up to scratch. The shutdown comes three years after the last system meltdown in August 2023, when cancelled flights on one of the busiest travel days of the year cost airlines £100 million ($135 million).” (09/09/26)
