U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a temporary restraining order Thursday blocking the Trump administration's ban on three outlets, directing officials to "immediately return, reinstate, and restore" their hard-pass credentials. The order holds while the underlying legal fight plays out, and the White House has signaled it disagrees with the ruling. The dispute has reignited a broader argument over who controls access to the briefing room.
The Senate voted down what is likely the last war powers resolution before November, an effort to pull U.S. forces out of hostilities with Iran. Four Republicans — Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul and Thom Tillis — crossed over to back it, but the measure still failed. The vote locks in the administration's freedom of action as negotiations with Tehran continue.
The national average for regular gasoline is hovering near $4.32 a gallon, up roughly 30 cents in a month, after West Texas Intermediate crossed $100 a barrel. Headline CPI is running at 3.4% while core has eased to 2.4%, and the Fed raised rates last week for the first time in three years, with most officials penciling in at least one more hike. Critics argue rate hikes can't fix a supply shock caused by a blocked Strait of Hormuz.
A federal appeals panel greenlit Ohio's documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement for voter registration, allowing it to be enforced this November. The ruling lands weeks before ballots go out and is expected to be cited in parallel fights in other states. Opponents say they're weighing further appeals.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the 81st UN General Assembly to a partially emptied hall, calling delegates who walked out moral cowards and telling New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, "You can't silence me. You can't silence the truth." He defended strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities as "one of the easiest decisions" of his tenure. Thousands of demonstrators gathered at Bryant Park in protest as he spoke.
President Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House Thursday, with the administration privately raising allegations that Beijing conducted low-level nuclear tests. GOP lawmakers urged Trump to press Xi on Chinese support for Iran as a lever to bring down energy costs at home. Analysts warn a deepening Beijing-Tehran alignment would reshape the whole conflict.
American and Iranian officials discussed reopening the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for lifting blockades and releasing frozen assets, days after Trump warned at the UN that he could "annihilate" the Islamic Republic absent a deal. The waterway handled roughly one-fifth of global oil before the war, and Brent pushed back above $100 on the news. Latvia's president separately warned that Iranian drone technology is fueling Russia's war machine.
Stanford researchers have transplanted human brain tissue into mice to study neurological disorders, and the work is drawing serious ethical scrutiny. Researchers say experiments are halted once the human cells hit a six-month developmental milestone, a line drawn specifically to avoid questions of consciousness. Bioethicists argue the guardrails need to be written down somewhere sturdier than a lab protocol.
Google will put a refrigerator-sized satellite carrying four tensor processing units aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 on October 1, the first hardware step in Project Suncatcher, built with Planet Labs. The pitch is solar-powered compute in orbit, where the sun never sets and cooling is free. Elon Musk responded that compute in space will eventually "round up to 100% of all compute," and China is pursuing the same idea.
An MK-58 Hawker Hunter — a 1950s-era British fighter still flown privately — went down off California's Central Coast Thursday after the pilot radioed trouble. The pilot ejected and was rescued from the water, and investigators are now examining the mayday audio. The aircraft's age and civilian operation are expected to be central to the probe.
