🚨 HAPPENING RIGHT NOW 🚨
Saudi Arabia sounded air-raid alerts across the kingdom overnight after Iran-backed Houthi rebels fired a barrage of ballistic missiles and drones at Riyadh, with one strike touching off a fire at a fuel depot near King Khalid International Airport that sent black smoke over the capital and disrupted flights. The Houthis claimed the attack alongside failed strikes on Baish, Taif, Farasan and Yanbu that Saudi air defenses said they intercepted, and the U.N. Security Council warned the escalation "risks further expanding the conflict" and threatens maritime security in the Red Sea. President Trump cut short a trip to Camp David and returned to the White House Saturday evening as his administration weighs its next move.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20th, 2026
Before we get to today’s news, here’s what happened on this date in history.
Five centuries ago, on September 20, 1519, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan set sail from Spain with five ships and roughly 270 men in search of a western route to the Spice Islands — a voyage that would outlive him but ultimately achieve the first circumnavigation of the globe.
A very different anniversary falls on this date in 1958, when a deranged assailant named Izola Curry stabbed Martin Luther King Jr. in the chest with a letter opener during a book signing at a Harlem department store, wounding him so close to the heart that doctors said a sneeze could have killed him.
🇺🇦 Ukraine Unleashes Over 1,000 Drones on Russia in Biggest Barrage of the War
Kyiv answered the final day of Russia’s wartime parliamentary vote with its largest drone assault yet, launching more than 1,000 drones alongside domestically built Flamingo and Pelican missiles at targets across Russia overnight — hundreds of them aimed at Moscow alone.
Moscow’s oil refinery and nearby logistics facilities took direct hits, and Mayor Sergei Sobyanin confirmed damage to residential buildings; two people, a 74-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman, were killed and 20 more wounded in the capital region.
Sobyanin called it an "unprecedented attack" but insisted the barrage failed to disrupt the vote; Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it shot down 1,110 Ukrainian drones nationwide.
President Volodymyr Zelensky framed the strikes as economic warfare, saying the refineries and depots represent "billions of dollars that sustain the war machine" and signaling more attacks on Russia’s oil revenue are coming.
🤖 Trump Says He’s Forming an "AI Force," Will Name a Czar to Lead It
President Trump announced Saturday he is standing up a new "AI Force" modeled on the Space Force and will soon name an artificial-intelligence czar to run it, framing the move as a shield for the industry against what he cast as attempts to slow it down or "destroy" it.
Trump made the announcement in a lengthy Truth Social post, saying the administration would keep encouraging AI development while relying on existing law, rather than new restrictions, to address abuses.
The move follows a public clash with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, both of whom have pushed for safety "guardrails" that Trump has dismissed as a "sick conspiracy" against the industry.
No name for the czar job had leaked as of Saturday, though the announcement lands just as Trump prepares to host Xi Jinping for a state dinner with America’s biggest tech and business titans in attendance.
— via Washington Examiner, Fox News
🔌 Cuba’s Power Grid Collapses Nationwide Again as US Sanctions Squeeze the Regime
Cuba’s electrical grid failed island-wide Friday, leaving millions of Cubans without power in the latest of what has become a near-routine event under the Trump administration’s tightened embargo.
Cuba’s Ministry of Energy and Mines announced the outage on social media, saying recovery "protocols are already beginning to be activated," though it gave no timetable for restoring power.
The blackout is at least the island’s sixth nationwide grid failure this year, driven by a mix of aging infrastructure, chronic fuel shortages, and mounting economic pressure from Washington.
Havana has repeatedly blamed U.S. sanctions for worsening the crisis, even as the Trump administration has escalated pressure on the Cuban government through Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s sanctions policy.
🔫 DOJ Says Federal Ban on Handgun Sales to 18-to-20-Year-Olds Is Unconstitutional
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel concluded this week that the federal law barring licensed dealers from selling handguns to legal adults ages 18 to 20 violates the Second Amendment and can no longer be criminally enforced.
The opinion leans on the Supreme Court’s Heller, Bruen and Wolford v. Lopez precedents, arguing that 18-to-20-year-olds count among "the people" the Second Amendment protects.
Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser argued the old rule was inconsistent on its face: "Eighteen-year-olds may vote, serve on juries, be drafted, and face adult criminal penalties," he said, while still being barred from buying a handgun.
The ruling only reaches the federal dealer-sale ban under 18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(1) and (c)(1); state-level age restrictions are untouched, and a future administration could reverse the legal opinion since it isn’t a binding court ruling.
🛂 Border Patrol "Got-Aways" Fall Below 40 a Day, Down 98% From the Biden-Era Peak
New Customs and Border Protection figures show known "got-aways" at the southern border — migrants who evade capture after crossing — have fallen below 40 a day so far this month, a 98.5% drop from the more than 2,000-a-day peak recorded in 2023.
Local law enforcement describes the shift firsthand: Kinney County, Texas Sheriff Brad Coe said his deputies have worked only two smuggling cases on their roads since January, and Eagle Pass Assistant Police Chief Beto Garza credited saturation patrols by Border Patrol and state troopers alike.
The administration points to a mix of tougher enforcement, a record 21,271 Border Patrol agents, expanded aerial surveillance, and a 16-month streak of zero asylum releases at the southwest border.
Fox News has separately confirmed the broader downward trend, reporting steep "gotaway" declines since the start of the administration, even as the exact percentage cited varies by measurement period.