⚡ TODAY IN HISTORY

On Sept. 30, 1949, the Berlin Airlift came to an end after Western cargo planes had flown about 2.3 million tons of food and fuel into a blockaded West Berlin. In 1946, a military tribunal in Nuremberg found 22 top Nazi leaders guilty of war crimes. Today? With the Strait of Hormuz still closed, Iraq has begun trucking gasoline in through Syria's Baniyas port to keep its fuel supply moving.

TOP NEWS

Iran receives formal U.S. reply to its seven-day ceasefire plan WAR MONTH 7

Iran sent Washington a plan last week to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in phases, the Gulf shipping lane that carried a fifth of the world's oil before the war began on Feb. 28. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi presented the U.S. reply to President Masoud Pezeshkian at a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday, four days after President Trump said he rejected the plan.

Supreme Court lets third-country deportations resume

The Trump administration asked the justices on Sept. 24 to pause a lower-court ruling that required migrants get a chance to raise torture fears before removal to a country that is not their own. The court granted the request on Tuesday over the dissent of its three liberal justices, clearing removals to nations such as South Sudan and Uganda until full arguments in December.

Pentagon breach exposed personal records of 3 million people 3.05M

Unauthorized users exploited a flaw in a file-sharing system at the Defense Manpower Data Center, the Pentagon's main store of personnel records, from October 2025 until the gap was found in July. The exposed files held Social Security numbers, birth dates and job details for about 2.76 million living people and 294,000 who have died, and victims are being offered a year of free credit monitoring.

Polo's remnants flood the Southwest after Mexico landfall 110 MPH

Hurricane Polo struck Mexico's Baja California Sur state on Tuesday with top winds of 110 mph, cutting power and flooding fishing towns such as Puerto San Carlos. The storm's remnants reached the U.S. Southwest that evening, forcing evacuations in small New Mexico towns along the Rio Grande over fears a dam could fail and prompting water rescues in Arizona.

Tech CEOs sign White House pledge to police their own AI

After several incidents of AI agents acting on their own, leaders including Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Sundar Pichai of Google and Elon Musk of xAI signed a voluntary safety accord at the White House on Tuesday. The pact calls for internal controls checked by outside auditors, and President Trump also signed an order telling federal agencies to call the technology “Super Intelligence.”

WORLD

Russian strikes hit Kyiv's power grid, killing 3 188 DRONES

Russia fired Zircon and Iskander-M missiles and 188 attack drones at Ukraine overnight into Wednesday, renewing its push against the power system as fall sets in. The attack killed three people in Kyiv, damaged energy sites and homes across the capital, and left at least six people dead nationwide.

Morocco gets its first female head of government

Under Morocco's constitution, the king picks the head of government from the party that wins the most seats in parliament. King Mohammed VI on Wednesday named Fatima Zahra Mansouri, leader of the Authenticity and Modernity Party and a former mayor of Marrakesh, the first woman to hold the post.

Yemen's renewed war uproots 145,000 people in a month 145,000

Iran-backed Houthi rebels have opened a new ground campaign against Yemen's Saudi-supported government, with heavy fighting in the southwestern provinces of Taiz, Lahj and Hodeidah. U.N. figures show at least 145,000 people displaced in September, and the World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that cholera is spreading as the country's hospitals near collapse.

Pakistan pledges its military to defend Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has become the main target of the latest Houthi attacks, and Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are bound by a new mutual defense pact. Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said in Rome on Tuesday that “whatever means” his country has will be available to the kingdom, though he declined to say whether Pakistani forces had already joined airstrikes.

UK frees on bail 5 men held near a U.S. bomber base

U.S. bombers have flown strikes on Iranian missile sites from RAF Fairford, a Royal Air Force base about 85 miles west of London. British counterterrorism police arrested five men near the base early Sunday on suspicion of planning an attack involving three trucks, then released them on bail Monday while probing a possible link to Iran, which denies any role.

POLITICS

Trump's ban on Canadian booze, dairy and motorcycles takes effect $967M

After Canada answered his summer tariffs with its own, President Trump signed proclamations under a 1930 tariff law to bar a list of Canadian goods outright. The ban took effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday and covers about $967 million in imports, a sliver of the $880 billion in yearly trade between the two nations.

Government-paid TV ads praising Trump spread before midterms $443K+

The White House calls the spots public service announcements, but lawmakers in both parties have questioned their legality five weeks before the Nov. 3 midterms. Spending on the first 30-second ad, which ends with “Paid for by the U.S. Government,” reached at least $443,000 by Friday as a second ad began airing on Newsmax.

ICE steps up arrests in 11 sanctuary states and D.C.

The Department of Homeland Security says local officials in sanctuary areas are freeing people that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wants to detain. The department rolled out a “nationwide public safety surge” this week covering California, Illinois, New York, Washington, D.C., and eight other states, and it denied reports that officers had been told to limit arrests.

Trump weighs a ban on diesel exports as fuel prices set records

Republican lawmakers have pushed to keep U.S.-refined diesel at home as the Iran war drives fuel costs higher. President Trump said Sunday his team is “very seriously” considering the move, though Goldman Sachs warns a long ban could raise gasoline prices.

Federal funding holds as the fiscal year ends tonight DEC. 11

Lawmakers in both parties wanted to avoid a shutdown fight weeks before voters head to the polls. Congress cleared a stopgap bill on Sept. 1 that keeps agencies running at current levels through Dec. 11, pushing the next deadline past the Nov. 3 midterms.

MARKETS

Consumer confidence falls to a 12-year low 81.9

Fuel costs, trade fights and job worries weighed on households surveyed Sept. 1–23, according to the Conference Board. The group's index fell 6.7 points to 81.9 in September, its lowest since 2014, and for the first time in the four years the question has been asked, more people called their family finances bad than good.

10-year Treasury yield sits near its highest since 2007 5.25%

Oil prices lifted by the Iran war have fed inflation fears and pushed borrowing costs higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, a benchmark for mortgage rates, rose to 5.25% on Tuesday, near a level last seen before the 2008 financial crisis.

Dow on track to snap a five-month winning streak −3.5% SEPT

Rising yields weighed on stocks for a second straight day as the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.26% to 51,349.92 on Tuesday. The S&P 500 dipped 0.16% and the Nasdaq slipped 0.09%, leaving the Dow down 3.5% for September with one trading day left.

Gas nears $4.48 as Brent crude holds close to $97 $4.48 GAS

The closed Strait of Hormuz has kept Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, far above the roughly $72 a barrel it cost before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February. Brent traded near $97 on Wednesday, and AAA put the average gallon of regular gas at nearly $4.48 on Monday, up from $3.13 a year ago.

FICO shares plunge as regulator puts VantageScore on equal footing −18%

Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will move to a single mortgage pricing grid that adds the rival VantageScore alongside FICO Classic. Shares of Fair Isaac, the company behind FICO credit scores, fell 18% in early trading on Tuesday.

ENTERTAINMENT

VMAs draw their biggest audience since 2015 8.43M

The 2026 MTV Video Music Awards aired Sunday night as a simulcast on CBS and MTV. Early Nielsen data show the show averaged 8.43 million viewers, the most in 11 years and up 51% from last year.

HBO's Casey Bloys set to run Paramount+ after the merger

Paramount Skydance is close to completing its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, and CEO David Ellison has settled who will lead the combined streaming business. Cindy Holland told staff on Tuesday she is leaving her post running Paramount+, clearing the way for Bloys to oversee both HBO Max and Paramount+, Variety reports.

Disney lays off hundreds of workers in new cost cuts

Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro and finance chief Hugh Johnston have pledged to keep reducing costs across the company. The latest layoffs hit shared areas such as tech and human resources, while the TV division and film studio were largely spared, Deadline reported on Tuesday.

Tom Cruise's ‘Digger’ opens Friday after split reviews $19M

Critics have divided over the dark satire from Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, in which Cruise plays an oil tycoon whose drilling sets off an environmental disaster. The Warner Bros. film opens Oct. 2, and projections for its first weekend slipped from $20 million to $19 million after press screenings, according to Puck.

Jennifer Lawrence joins Zach Cregger's sci-fi film ‘The Flood’

Zach Cregger, the director behind the horror hits ‘Barbarian’ and ‘Weapons,’ is making an original science fiction film for New Line. Jennifer Lawrence has signed on to star, Deadline reported on Tuesday from the Zurich Summit.