🚨 HAPPENING RIGHT NOW 🚨
China’s Xi Jinping touched down at Joint Base Andrews Wednesday evening for his first visit to Washington in more than a decade, and the two-day summit at the White House gets underway this morning with a formal military welcome ceremony for Xi and First Lady Peng Liyuan before Trump and Xi turn to artificial intelligence, tariff reductions on non-strategic goods, rare-earth mineral export controls, and the release of detained American Gulshan Abbas — with a state dinner set to close out the visit Friday evening.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24th, 2026
Before we get to today’s news, here’s what happened on this date in history. Congress laid the foundation for the entire federal judiciary on this date in 1789, when President Washington signed the Judiciary Act that created the Supreme Court along with the tiered system of district and circuit courts beneath it — the same basic structure that still hears the nation’s biggest cases today.
Baseball took a quieter turn on the same date 145 years later: September 24, 1934 saw Babe Ruth take the field for the New York Yankees for the final time, drawing a walk before a crowd of barely 4,000 fans at Yankee Stadium in what turned out to be his last game in pinstripes before a trade sent him elsewhere that offseason.
🇮🇷 Iran’s Pezeshkian Lashes Out at Trump and Israel in Defiant UN Address
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian used his UN General Assembly speech to accuse the United States and Israel of attacking Iran with advanced weaponry, even as CENTCOM disputes at least one of his specific claims.
Pezeshkian said Iran “did not bend the knee” under attack and displayed images he said showed children killed in strikes, blaming the US and Israel directly.
CENTCOM pushed back on one claim, saying American forces never struck the city of Lamerd or anywhere within 30 miles of it on the conflict’s opening day.
Pezeshkian accused Trump of “bullying” Iran, said the country is “ready for dialog and diplomacy” but won’t accept “the language of force,” and vowed Iran “can never be made to surrender.”
— via Fox News, Washington Times
🤝 Trump Meets Venezuela’s Acting President for the First Time Since Maduro’s Capture
President Trump sat down with Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez at a UN General Assembly reception Tuesday night, the first formal meeting between the two countries’ leaders since US forces captured Nicolás Maduro in January — and the first head-of-state-level meeting between Washington and Caracas since Bill Clinton met Hugo Chávez in 1999.
Rodríguez said the two discussed “strengthening the bilateral relationship” in energy, mining, and security, and thanked the US for earthquake relief assistance.
The meeting caps a dramatic reversal for Rodríguez, who spent years as Maduro’s vice president and oil minister taking an aggressively anti-US line before pivoting to cooperate with the Trump administration.
The rapprochement follows a major oil agreement giving the US a role in developing 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves, and comes after CIA Director John Ratcliffe separately met with Rodríguez in Caracas.
⚠️ Zelensky Warns Russia Could Target Other European Nations Next
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the UN General Assembly that the risk of a Russian drone, missile, or ground offensive against countries bordering Russia or Belarus is “very high,” arguing Putin may look to fracture Western unity if he can’t win outright in Ukraine.
Zelensky pointed to a string of recent incidents — a Romanian airspace incursion, a Lithuanian drone breach launched from Belarus, and an attempted attack on a German airport — as evidence Russia is already testing Europe’s resolve.
He warned that inaction invites more of the same: “If you don’t respond, Russians, they will go further.”
Zelensky said he discussed additional air defense capabilities with Trump and called for a unified European response to the growing hybrid-warfare threat.
⚖️ Supreme Court’s Fall Term Takes Up Guns, Elections, and Parental Rights
The Supreme Court opens a fall term loaded with cases that could reshape constitutional law, starting with a December 2 challenge to state bans on semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15.
Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins will test whether states can ban commonly owned semiautomatic rifles under the Second Amendment.
Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota, set for December 8, asks whether Arizona can require proof of citizenship for voter registration and remove ineligible voters close to an election.
A December 7 case, International Partners for Ethical Care Inc. v. Ferguson, examines whether parents can challenge a Washington state law that lets schools delay notifying them when a runaway child seeks gender-related treatment.
— via Daily Signal
🔌 Republicans Split Over How to Handle a Growing AI Data Center Backlash
With roughly 70% of Americans telling pollsters they don’t want a new AI data center in their community, vulnerable Senate Republicans are searching for a response that doesn’t look like the federal regulation their party has spent years campaigning against.
Sen. Jon Husted argued data center siting “should be a local decision, not a federal decision,” while former Rep. Mike Rogers has backed a temporary moratorium until voters’ questions about water and power use are answered.
GOP candidates are asking companies for closed-loop water systems, guarantees that consumer electricity bills won’t rise, and a bigger share of property tax revenue routed back to affected communities.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he favors keeping the decision with “the government that’s closest to them” rather than a heavy-handed federal fix.
— via Fox News, Washington Examiner