SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 6th, 2026
Before we get to today’s news, here’s what happened on this date in history. On this day in 1901, President William McKinley was shot by an anarchist at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York — he died eight days later, elevating Vice President Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency.
Also on this day in 1995, Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive-games record, playing in his 2,131st straight game for the Baltimore Orioles and earning the nickname baseball’s “Iron Man.”
💥 Iran Fires on U.S. Warships, Trump Threatens to Hit Nuclear Site
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard fired ballistic missiles at two U.S. Navy vessels this week — a carrier and a guided-missile destroyer, both of which evaded the attack without casualties. The U.S. retaliated within hours, striking and disabling three Iranian oil tankers under what War Secretary Pete Hegseth calls a “tanker-for-tanker” policy.
CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper: “If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost — taking out three of yours.”
Iran’s foreign ministry called the U.S. strikes a “war crime,” while President Trump said the U.S. “may hit” Iran’s underground Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site “very soon,” declaring Iran “will not have a nuclear weapon.”
🕊️ Witkoff and Kushner Land in Moscow as Putin Orders Pause on Kyiv Strikes
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Moscow Saturday for talks aimed at ending the Russia-Ukraine war, with plans to continue on to Kyiv. The Kremlin announced a 72-hour halt to strikes on Kyiv starting at midnight, even as Ukrainian air defenses downed or suppressed 128 of 167 Russian attack drones overnight.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov: “Putin has ordered that no strikes be carried out against Kyiv for three days, starting at midnight today.”
Zelensky answered in kind: “We are looking out for them, not for Russia. There will be no air strikes from our side, and Russia must do the same.”
Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev captioned photos of the delegation’s arrival “Welcome to Moscow Peacemakers.”
🔍 Pentagon Polygraphs ~50 Officials in Hunt for Munitions Leaker
The Pentagon ordered about 50 members of the Joint Staff to sit for polygraph exams after classified details about depleted U.S. munitions stockpiles — drawn down during the Iran conflict — leaked to reporters. No one reportedly failed the leak-specific questions in the initial round of testing.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the department “takes all leaks of classified national security information extremely seriously and investigates accordingly.”
President Trump has publicly disputed any shortage, posting that the U.S. has “virtually unlimited amounts of Mid to High Grade Ammunition.”
🚨 Maryland Sheriffs Blast Sanctuary Law as Fatal ICE Case Fuels Fight
Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler testified before a House Judiciary subcommittee against Maryland’s Community Trust Act, the law that ended the state’s 287(g) ICE partnership program; he now leads 16 sheriffs suing over it. The testimony landed alongside a case DHS is spotlighting: prosecutors say Jose Antonio Caballero-Nolasco, an illegal alien from El Salvador, drove drunk the wrong way on I-270 on Aug. 29, killing a mother and daughter.
Gahler: “I don’t want to have to open the jail door and say, Welcome back to Harford County. Go victimize.”
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin called the deaths “completely avoidable.”
🎪 GOP Kicks Off First-Ever Midterm Convention in Dallas
The RNC opens its first-ever midterm convention Sept. 9-10 at Dallas’s American Airlines Center, with more than 100 speakers and sessions built around the party’s 2026 agenda ahead of the November 3 election. President Trump, originally slated to keynote just the second night, is now expected to speak both nights alongside Vice President JD Vance amid concerns about attendance and viewership.
RNC Chairman Joe Gruters: “Over two action-packed days, we will take Americans through the defining issues of our Party’s agenda and what is at stake in November… building toward President Donald Trump’s vision for the next chapter of American greatness.”
Trump and Vance are now both speaking on both nights, a shift from the original plan, as some down-ballot Republicans stay away — a Politico survey found 45 of 70+ GOP candidates undecided about attending or skipping the convention entirely.
The RNC revoked Canada’s CBC of its press credentials over a since-reversed internal memo telling staff not to call 9/11 “terrorist attacks,” ahead of a 25th-anniversary 9/11 memorial planned at the convention.